I'll Explain Everything When It's Friday
by Isabel5
Summary: Chloe/Oliver. When Chloe starts reliving the same Thursday she has to figure out a way to stop it with the help of her favorite team of Superheros. If she's lucky, she can stop the time loop, keep everyone she loves alive, and maybe get a bit of action.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own them, but that would be awesome.

Author's Note: This is just a teaser because I want to give you a little something while I finish the story.

* * *

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

METROPOLIS, KANSAS BRANCH

TRANSCRIPT OF RECORDING OF CLASSIFIED INTERVIEW*

DATE: OCTOBER 16, 2008

SUBJECT: CHLOE ANNE SULLIVAN

CASE WORKERS: SPECIAL AGENT ALLISON MCCLANE AND SPECIAL AGENT JOHN POWELL

MCCLANE: Is it recording?

POWELL: Of course it's recording, can't you see the blinking light?

MCCLANE: That lights always on.

POWELL:Yeah, it's on all the time, but it blinks when it's recording.

MCCLANE: You sure it's not the other way around? It doesn't blink when it's on and stay on when it's recording.

SULLIVAN: If it helps, I have that exact same recorder. It blinks when it's recording.

POWELL: See.

MCCLANE: You're going to listen to her?

SULLIVAN: Can we get this thing started? We don't have much time left.

MCCLANE: Right because at midnight you turn into a pumpkin.

SULLIVAN: Something like that.

POWELL: Ok, let's do this thing right at least. This is Special Agent Powell and Special Agent McClane. We are interviewing subject Chloe Sullivan in the matter of the murder of Lex

Luther. (Sullivan snorts). The date is October 16, 2008.

SULLIVAN: Day one hundred forty seven. (Sullivan says under her breath)

POWELL:The time is 8:45 p.m. Ok Sullivan. Why don't we start at the beginning.

MCCLANE:What did you mean when you said day one hundred forty seven?

POWELL:Or we can start there.

SULLIVAN: I meant that this is the one hundred forty seventh time I've lived this day.

(McClane snorts)

POWELL: You want to explain that a little more?

SULLIVAN:You know what? Why not. It's not like you'll remember or even believe me so here goes nothing. I have lived this day, this exact day, October 16, 2008, one hundred and

forty seven times.

POWELL:You're reliving the day? Like the movie "Groundhogs Day"?

SULLIVAN:Exactly, like "Groundhogs Day".

POWELL: That's a great movie.

SULLIVAN:It used to be one of my favorites, but it kind of loses its charm when you start to live it.

POWELL:I can understand that.

MCCLANE:Wait, don't tell me you're actually falling for this Groundhog shit?

POWELL:Just let her talk. I want to see where this is going.

SULLIVAN:Yeah just let me talk. So it all started one hundred and fifty eight days ago. On October 10th.

MCCLANE:October 10th was a week ago.

SULLIVAN:For you it was a week ago. For me it was one hundred and fifty eight days ago.

MCCLANE:Ok I can't listen to anymore. Are we really going to waste our time with this crap?

SULLIVAN:What time is it?

POWELL: 8:48

SULLIVAN: Put it on channel 8. Humor me.

(In the background is the sound of the television turning on. It sounds like a football game. At the time of the interview The Metropolis Sharks were playing the New York Jets on channel 8.)

SULLIVAN:In a second Marshall is going to intercept and run the ball downfield seventy four yards for the touchdown.

(In the background and announcer can be heard calling the game.)

ANNOUNCER:And Marshall intercepts. He intercepts! He's at the 40, the 30, the 20, the 10. Touchdown!

POWELL:Well I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.

MCCLANE:This game's on a delay right? Or it's a repeat?

SULLIVAN: No, it's completely live. The Sharks are gonna win by 21 points by the way if you want to place a bet. So do you want to hear my story or not?"

POWELL:I can do with a good story.

*Note from the desk of the Deputy Director.

The rest of the transcript appears to be missing and the original tape cannot be found. The Special Agents listed in transcript claim no memory of conducting said interview and there is no record of a Chloe Anne Sullivan being signed in, detained, or questioned. Also point of interest, Lex Luther is alive and well.

* * *

Additional Author's Note: I would like to point out from the beginning so there are no misconseptions this is an original story, only in the way that I wrote the scenarios and the dialoge. I DID NOT come up with the concept of a person reliving the same day over and over again, there are countless Movies, TV Shows, and many other forms of entertainment that have used this concept far before I came along. As stated in the first chapter one of those is Groundhogs Day, there were episodes of Supernatural (one of my favorite by the way), Eureka, Stargate SG-1 (a show I don't watch but have heard this episode is one of it's best), X-Files, Twilight Zone and many many more just check out the Wikipedia page on Groundhogs day and Time Loops. I'm also sure that someone, probably many many many someones on this very website have written thier own versions "repeat the day" stories in many many different fandoms. I just want everyone to know that I'm not claiming to be blazing the feild with this concept, I just took the premise and added my own twist to it. I apologize if it seems like I'm treating you as if you're stupid. I'm positive that 99.9% of the people who will read this know all of that already but I was recently accused of plagerizing a story because my concept wasn't all orginial (visiting the memories of your past, present, and future so that you can change the outcome, shout out to good old Charlie Dickens!) so I just want to be clear from the get go.


	2. Chapter 2

Chloe studied the sparse interview room they were holding her in. Before she could even start to worry about whether this really was the right course of action, Special Agent Powell and Special Agent McClane entered the room carrying trays of food and drinks. "I don't understand why we went out to get her food."

"Because I haven't eaten all day, it's a long story, and admit it Special Agent McClane, you're intrigued." McClane snorted. Chloe reached across the table and grabbed her sandwich.

"I also haven't eaten all day." Powell looked pointedly at McClane. "I was so close, oh so close to the most delicious meal of my life and you just had to go chasing murders." Chloe coughed pointedly. "Sorry, alleged murderers." She shrugged, that was slightly better.

"Please tell me we aren't talking about that stupid steak again?" McClane grumbled.

"One, don't ever refer to it as "that stupid steak"."

"It's just a steak Powell." McClane groaned.

"It's not just a steak; it's nowhere near just a steak." Powell got a faraway look in his eyes. "It is an artistry of meat, cows grow up hoping to one day become that steak."

"Cows grow up hoping to be slaughtered to become your diner?" McClane smiled at him.

"When it's prepared by Jonathan Pipper? You bet your ass they do." Powell said. "It took me eight months to get that reservation. I've been dreaming of that steak for eight months and instead I get this." He looked at his sandwich and frowned.

"It's a steak…sort of." McClane shrugged. "A steak sandwich."

"Did you get extra pickles?" Chloe interrupted.

"On the side." Powell said holding out Chloe's drink. "So start at the beginning, your beginning."

"Sure, no problem." Chloe took a bite of her sandwich and smiled. "So like I said, it started on October 10th, one hundred and fifty eight days ago."

**

* * *

**

October 10, 2008 (158 days ago)

"You promised." Chloe whined as Lois gathered various stacks of paper from different areas around the room and stuffed them into her overflowing briefcase.

"I know and I'm sorry." Lois grabbed the cup of coffee out of Chloe's hand and took a quick sip before handing it back.

"A girl's day you said. We'll do manicures and pedicures and facials and have a ridiculously expensive lunch and then go for drinks." Chloe reminded her.

"And then someone from Greenpeace decided to forget about the peace part and blow up an oil tanker." Lois pointed out, pausing to turn around and smile. "If you were still a reporter you'd understand."

"That's not fair." Chloe frowned then sighed dejectedly. "I need ice cream."

"You need to get out of your pajamas." Lois raised an eyebrow. "And take a shower."

"I'm not showering until Tibet is free." Chloe glared at her.

"You don't give a rat's ass about Tibet, you're wallowing." Lois pointed out. "You've been wallowing for two weeks." She pulled her briefcase on her shoulder. "Take a shower, get dressed, go outside, smell the fresh air, take a walk, then take another shower because seriously." Lois cringed. "You stink." She smiled slightly then opened the door and walked out.

"I do too care about Tibet." Chloe mumbled to herself and then sniffed her shirt and recoiled. "Ok, maybe I stink, but I'm not wallowing." She said taking the last sip of her coffee and then putting the cup in the sink. "Maybe, maybe I should change my clothes and fresh air couldn't hurt, and now I'm talking to myself. God, I really do need to get out of this house." She walked into the bathroom and turned the shower on.

After forty five minutes, gallons of water, and one worn out loofa, Chloe walked out of the bathroom with two less layers of skin feeling better than she had in weeks. She sighed and opened her closet wondering if she would feel different wearing regular clothes and then contemplated burning the pajamas that she'd been wearing for the past two weeks. She grabbed a few things, laid them on the bed, and then sighed. What difference would getting dressed make? She would be dressed but then what? She could take a walk, get some fresh air but after that she didn't have anything to do.

Three months ago she had it all figured out. She decided to get her life back on track, take over the Isis Foundation. But when she called Lana and offered to take the lead, Lana informed her that while it was a very generous offer she was shutting the place down, pulling her funding at the end of the month, and even had the audacity to ask Chloe to pack it all up for her. At first, Chloe thought about going it alone, getting her own funding and keeping the place alive with no luck. The bank wouldn't give her a business loan because she wasn't going to turn a profit and had no way of paying it back. She couldn't get private funding from Charity organizations because she couldn't explain why her foundation was different and why it supported such a small select clientele, not that they would believe her if she did. So two weeks ago she packed up the office and then used the last of her savings to pay for a storage shed because she couldn't bear to get rid of any of it. For a few seconds she considered just setting things up in the apartment and working out of the Talon, but while she was still living with Lois that wasn't going to work.

Chloe stared at the clothes she picked out and groaned lying down on the bed and closing her eyes. Maybe taking a shower was enough, maybe she didn't have to actually do anything else today. She should take it slow, baby steps would be best. Her phone rang and she slapped her hand around searching for it, not bothering to open her eyes. She grabbed it and answered. "Hello."

"May I speak with Chloe Sullivan please?" The voice was that of an older woman.

"This is her." Chloe opened her eyes to stare at the ceiling.

"This is she." The woman corrected.

"Wow, your name is Chloe Sullivan too, what are the odds?" Chloe smirked.

"No, I'm sorry, you see, when I asked to speak with Chloe Sullivan you said 'This is her' the correct answer is, 'This is she', I was simply correcting you." The woman said.

"Yeah, I actually got that. When I implied that your name was Chloe Sullivan too, I was using sarcasm in a poor attempt at a joke." Chloe grabbed a pillow and clutched it to her chest.

"I see, well I can't really be the judge of something like that; I've often been told that I have no sense of humor." The woman said.

"It was a bad joke anyway, don't worry about it. I'm sorry, I'm really off my game here, maybe we could start over and I could think of something better to say, funnier, or maybe you could call back tomorrow, then I'd have the whole day to come up with something." Chloe sighed. "I used to be good at this, the snark just rolled off my tongue."

"That won't be necessary thank you."

"I'm sorry, do you mind if I ask who I'm speaking with?" Chloe suddenly realized she had no idea who this woman was.

"To whom I'm speaking dear." The woman corrected her again. "I'm calling on behalf of Oliver Queen."

"Never heard of him." Chloe joked.

That seemed to catch the woman off guard. "The head of Queen Industries?" She added as if that would make a difference.

"Is he the guy who makes the iPods? Cause mine keeps acting up and I know I sent quite a scathing e-mail to tech support but I didn't think that the head of the company would call me personally." Chloe smiled.

"I believe you're thinking of Steve Jobs with Apple, Mr. Queen is…" The woman trailed off. "You're joking again aren't you?"

"Don't feel bad, that one was pretty bad too." Chloe told her.

"So then I'm to understand you do know Mr. Queen?"

"Tall, blonde, too good looking for his own good? Yeah we've met." Chloe nodded.

"Yes well, Mr. Queen would like to set up an appointment with you for ten o'clock this morning. Are you available?" She asked.

"Actually Emma make it eleven. I forgot I've got a meeting with R&D at nine thirty and they always go over schedule." Oliver called from the background.

Chloe sat up slowly a look on confusion on her face. "Is he sitting right there?"

The line was silent. "Yes."

"Let me talk to him." Chloe rolled her eyes and pulled on the shirt she'd picked out earlier.

"That really isn't necessary, are you free for eleven?"

"He's sitting right next to you?" Chloe pulled on her pants.

"Yes ma'am."

"So then I'm to assume that he's in close proximity to the phone?" Chloe grabbed her shoes pulling them on.

There was another pause and then a sigh. "Yes ma'am."

"But he couldn't call me himself?" She sat back down on the bed.

"Mr. Queen would like…"

"Yes I know what Mr. Queen would like." Chloe said. "I just want to make sure I get this right. He wants to make an appointment with me, he's sitting right there next to you and yet he couldn't call me himself."

"Really ma'am, he would just like…"

Chloe cut her off. "Yes, thank you." She hung up the phone and then dialed Oliver's cell phone number.

"Chloe." He answered halfway through the first ring with an amused tone in his voice.

"You had your assistant call me?" She balked at him.

"I needed to set up an appointment."

"You had your assistant call me while she was standing two feet away from you?" Chloe walked to the kitchen.

"I am busy." Oliver defended himself. "And that is her job."

"It's called multi tasking Queen, you should be a genius at that by now." Chloe joked with him as she started a pot of coffee.

"It's called delegating." He countered.

"Do you think that I'm the type of person that you should be delegating with?" Chloe asked him.

"That would be a no." He admitted.

"What do you need?"

"What? I can't just want to see you? See how you're doing? I have to need something."

She leaned on the counter top while he feigned indignation. "What do you need Oliver?"

"Just a favor." He said. "A tiny one."

"A tiny one?" She smiled. "So is this a tiny, 'Can you store some stuff for me' favor or is this more of a, 'I just need you to intercept a file, you probably won't be attacked by a crazy knife throwing ninja girl' type of tiny favor?"

"Well Dinah's decided she works better on her own and she promised not to interfere with our stuff anymore, so I can almost guarantee there shouldn't be any crazy knife throwing ninja girls." Oliver joked.

"You can almost guarantee there shouldn't. You're not instilling a lot of confidence here Queen."

"Come on Sidekick, ninja's are notoriously unpredictable, I can never guarantee against ninjas, especially crazy ones, it's in my recruitment contract." He paused a second as she chuckled. "So what do you say?"

Chloe took a deep sip of her coffee. "Not like I have anything better to do. But if there are ninjas, I want hazard pay."

"You got it." Oliver laughed. "Met me at the Clock Tower at eleven."

* * *

Chloe opened the elevator grate and stepped into the Clock Tower. "Hello?" She checked her watch, it was five 'til eleven so she was a bit early but someone should have been there.

"We're in the back." Oliver called out. She set down her bag and walked to the room behind the clock. Just as she stepped through the door an arrow zoomed past her ear and imbedded itself in the wall behind her. She looked from the arrow to Oliver who looked upset, but Chloe had a feeling that it wasn't because he'd almost hit her.

"Wow, impressive." Victor said in a bored sarcastic tone from beside him.

"It's still in the testing stages." Oliver put the bow down.

"What was it supposed to do?" AC pulled the arrow out of the wall and immediately dropped it, shaking his hand. Everyone looked to the ground as the arrow iced over, then formed a small circle of ice around the tip.

"That, only on a much larger scale." Oliver walked over and picked it up carefully and tucked it into a bag.

"That thing almost hit me." Chloe pointed out as she walked further into the room.

"I do have pretty good aim." Oliver rolled his eyes and Chloe glared. "It wasn't going to hit you."

"Hey Chloe." Victor stepped in to ease the tension and hugged her, AC and Bart following his lead.

"So you guys are back together now?" Chloe looked at the team.

"Better together than apart." Victor shrugged.

"I know the feeling." Chloe assured him. "So what's going on, what's the tiny favor?"

"It's all business with you." Oliver shook his head. "You can't relax a little? Let us catch up?"

"Fine." Chloe smiled. "How are you doing? Me I'm fine. Got no job, not sure what I'm going to do with my life or how I'm going to pay my rent. Are we all caught up? Good. You got any coffee?"

"None made but there is some in the kitchen." Oliver nodded behind her.

"So what's the big emergency?" Chloe opened cabinet and started the coffee.

"No one said emergency." Oliver got down the cups and creamer. "I didn't say emergency."

"You only call me in emergencies." Chloe leaned on the counter. "When you've exhausted all options."

"That's not true." Oliver shook his head. "You're pretty much generally our only option." She crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow. "But even if you weren't our only option you'd still be our first choice." Oliver back peddled.

"Nice save." She nudged his shoulder. "So what's the non emergency, tiny favor?"

"I may have lied." Oliver winced and handed her a cup of coffee.

"About the emergency?" Chloe sipped the coffee slowly.

"About the favor." Oliver sat down. "About it being tiny."

"So it's a big favor?" Chloe sat across from him. "How big?"

"Life changing big." Oliver admitted.

Chloe looked at him for a second and Oliver could tell that she was weighing something in her head. "I could do with something life changing right about now."

"I want to re-open the Isis foundation." Oliver told her. "Clark told me about what you've been doing, or rather what you've been trying to do. I want you to be able to do that."

Chloe looked at Oliver and tilted her head. "You want to throw money at me so I can re-open the Isis foundation and council the meteor infected?" Oliver nodded at her. "No."

"No?" Oliver smiled confused.

"No." Chloe shook her head and sipped her coffee, leaning back in her chair. "You're a great guy Oliver, a hero, the Green Arrow, defender of the weak and abused, but first and foremost you're a business man so tell me what the real reason for all this is?"

He smiled at her. "You're right." He took a deep breath and looked at her. "I want you to do what you do; by day I want you to run the Isis foundation and help those people that need help."

"And at night?"

"I want you to run the JLA." Oliver said.

"What's the JLA?" Chloe looked confused.

"We are." Bart ran in the room and rummaged through the refrigerator.

"Justice League of America." Victor explained.

"So you have a name now?" Chloe looked at them.

"We finally managed to agree on something." Oliver said. "So what do you say?"

"Before I decide I want to be absolutely clear about what you expect me to do here." Chloe told him.

"I want you to set up the Isis Foundation as our home office. You've got the supplies, you've got the equipment. I want to have a central hub where all of our intelligence is stored, where the guys can check in on a regular basis, maybe even work at that won't be suspicious like the Clock Tower or the Queen building, and I want you to run it. I want you to be our Watchtower, I want you to work out the details, I want you to do the investigating. I hear you're pretty well equipped for that sort of work now."

"Clark told you about my mad computer skills then." Chloe smiled wryly.

"He may have mentioned it." Oliver nodded. "I was a little confused on how you figured out the poison so quickly."

"Wow, didn't realize the king of secret couldn't keep other peoples."

"He's afraid that it's his fault and that it's going to hurt you, I think he was worried, he just wanted some advice." Oliver defended Clark.

"No it's fine. It's not like he posted it on MySpace." Chloe sighed. "What you're asking me to do is pretty huge."

"I know." He smiled at her. "Trust me I know what I'm asking you. Like I said this is a life changing favor, emphasis on the favor part. You don't have to do it."

Chloe rolled her eyes at him. "Of course I'm going to do it. I'm just not sure you've got the right person for the job."

"I think I've got the perfect person for the job." He assured her.

"You're the boss." Chloe took a deep breath and stood up. "I can get the stuff out of storage later today and start setting it up."

"Actually…" Oliver winced.

"I'm telling you boss man, don't let her see it yet, give us some more time." Bart stage whispered.

"Let me see what?" Chloe looked between Bart and Oliver.

* * *

Twenty minutes later Chloe stared into the lobby of the Isis Foundation with her mouth open wide. After a few false starts, she finally managed to articulate something. "I am literally speechless." She tried and failed miserably to step over a pile of half unpacked boxes. "What did you…how did this…why?" She turned around in a circle and surveyed the damage that lay in front of her. There were boxes upon boxes piled haphazardly on top of each other, desks and chairs on their sides, piled up to the ceiling, electronics and wires lying in a tangle in a corner.

Bart, Victor, and AC all took a step to the side then looked at Oliver. "You?" Chloe asked.

"I brought everything I had over and then Clark told me about your storage unit. The plan was to have it all set up before you got here but halfway through Victor pointed out you might like to set it up yourself since you'd be the one working here the most."

"This is halfway done? What on earth could it have looked like before?" Chloe gasped.

"Ok, maybe we should show her the good part now?" Bart offered.

"Yeah." Oliver said enthusiastically. He was afraid if she stayed staring at the mess they made for much longer she'd either hyperventilate or beat the crap out of him, or both. "That's probably for the best. Come with me." He held out his hand and helped Chloe climb her way back to the door. Instead of going outside however Oliver turned right and led Chloe up the stairs. She followed him confused as they arrived at a hallway lined with doors.

"What's this?" Chloe asked as Oliver stopped at the first door.

"Open it." He handed her the key. She gave him another look and opened the door, only to stop dead in her tracks.

"This is the part that I got finished." He walked up behind her. Chloe stared at the completely renovated, beautifully decorated apartment. There was a brand new fully furnished kitchen area, a nice sized dining room and a fully functional living room. There was a hallway towards the back where Chloe knew she would find some bedrooms and a bathroom.

"I don't understand." Chloe stepped in softly, treading very lightly on the brand new hardwood floors.

"It's for you." Oliver closed the door behind him after the guys filed in. Bart went straight to the kitchen and opened the fridge, which Chloe saw was fully stocked. "I thought, if you wanted, you could live here."

"Live here?" Chloe tore her eyes away from the room astonished.

"There's going to be a lot of long nights and I thought this would just be easier. Smallvile's pretty far away for an everyday commute and living above the Talon has got to be getting pretty old, not to mention I'm sure with Lois there it's not the best place for a newly engaged couple. It might make it harder to keep some things from Jimmy but…"

"Jimmy's not…" Chloe shook her head. "Jimmy's not really a factor in anything right now, or ever again."

"Oh, But I heard about the engagement and the cute little story with the plastic ring from the gumball machine."

"Don't make fun of that." Chloe frowned at him. "I shouldn't have said yes in the first place. I was stuck in Montana for so long and when I got out I just wanted to do something, I wanted to live and I thought saying yes to Jimmy was the right thing. But when the stuff with Isis started going downhill and I couldn't explain to him why it was so important to me and what the big deal was it caused a pretty big rift."

"It wasn't anything you could fix?" Oliver asked.

"Possibly but then…" She trailed off running her hand along the edge of the brand new granite kitchen countertops.

"Then what?" Oliver pressed on and she sighed.

"Well you." Chloe looked at him. "That night, when you were poisoned and I brought you here, Jimmy showed up and I couldn't explain to him what was going on, I couldn't explain to him why I was taking care of you instead of bringing you to the hospital, I couldn't even explain how I knew you. At first it didn't bother him, he thought it meant an exclusive. When he realized that not only was I not going to let him take any pictures, but I wasn't going to give him a story there was another fight. About the secrets and the projects and all the things in my life that seemed to come before him. He yelled and I yelled and I gave him the ring and we haven't spoken since."

"I'm sorry Chloe." Oliver said after a minute.

She shrugged. "I thought I could give it up and become a wife and a normal member of society but I can't do that, I knew I couldn't do that, but I could never tell him. Jimmy's a great guy but he's not this…" She motioned around to the guys. "He wouldn't understand what I do, he wouldn't be able to live with it and I think in a way that was why I stayed with him, he was my link to a normal life."

"Normal lives are overrated." Oliver offered.

"Yeah." Chloe smiled turned away. "Oliver this place is way too much."

"Not for what I'm asking of you." He shook his head. "It's really no big deal. I bought the whole building and these places were just sitting here, they might as well be useful."

"Places?"

"There are two other apartments." Oliver explained. "I fixed those up for the guys if they want to use them." He clapped his hands together and smiled at her. "So what do you say?"

"I say…" Chloe looked around the apartment and breathed deeply before turning back to Oliver. "I'm in."

"Yes!" Bart screamed from across the room and Chloe laughed.

**

* * *

**

October 16, 2008 (day 147)

"Wait a minute." McClane held up her hand to pause Chloe's story. "You're sitting here telling me that Oliver Queen, the Head of Queen Industries, the third richest man on the planet…"

"Second." Chloe corrected her. "Jacob Steinman just lost a bundle in the stock market."

"Ok, second richest man on the planet, is the Green Arrow?"

"Yeah huh." Chloe nodded. "Are you going to finish your fries?" She motioned to Powell who pushed his plate over.

"Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow." McClane repeated, working the thought over in her head.

"Yeah, that's not really the point of this story so if you could just keep up and stop getting sidetracked." Chloe checked her watch. "I've only got five more hours before the day starts over and like I said this is a long story."

* * *

Author's Note: I promise, I'll get to the first October 16th in the next chapter. I just had to set up the story.


	3. Chapter 3

**October 15, 2008 (148 days ago)**

"Do you have any more of those chocolate scone things?" Bart dug through the basket of pastries on Chloe's countertop.

"You ate them all yesterday." Chloe didn't bother looking up from the kitchen table where she was sorting through files and inputting the information.

"Right." Bart plopped down at the table next to Chloe and sighed heavily.

Chloe put the papers she was studying down and rubbed her eyes. "You can go get some. The bakery is right around the corner you can be there and back in like ten seconds."

"Yeah, but paying takes forever." Bart sighed. "If I could just…"

"No, no stealing." Chloe glared at him and then went back to her work as the door opened behind her.

"Hey, I brought you some more of those chocolate scones." Oliver walked into the apartment. "I figured Bart ate all of yours."

"You are like, awesome." Bart jumped up and relieved Oliver of the bag. "Best boss in the universe." He pulled three of the scones out of the bag and ate one in two bites. "You sure you aren't psychic or something?"

"I just know my team." Oliver smiled as AC and Victor came in from the other room.

"Chloe, we looked at the toilet but we can't fix it. You'll have to get a plumber out here, just don't use it." Victor whipped his hands.

"Don't use it?" Chloe turned to them. "The only toilet in the apartment?"

"Ok, use it, but you're going to flood the bathroom and probably the hallway." AC washed his hands in the sink.

"My bathroom's fine, you can come on over and use it any time." Victor offered. "It won't be strange or anything." Victor, AC, and Bart had all decided to stay in the building, at least for a while, sticking around as Chloe got everything set up. Victor got one of the apartments all for himself while AC and Bart had to share the third apartment after a humiliating defeat in an arm wrestling match.

"Well yeah. Considering you're never there." Chloe smiled.

"What do you mean?" Oliver sat down.

"They've been crashing here." Chloe snorted and Oliver lifted his eyebrows. "We've had quite a few late nights and apparently the five steps to my guest room are easier than the ten steps to their apartment." Oliver laughed.

"You want me to talk to them?" Oliver sat down.

"No." She looked up at Oliver. "I want you to call a plumber." She smiled and the lights flickered. "And an electrician. You made this a wonderful place to live Oliver, everything is clean and shiny and new and pretty and I'm very grateful but I can't use my toilet and there's a short somewhere in the wires." The lights flickered again as if on cue.

"Got it." Oliver smiled. "Plumber and Electrician, I'll call them tomorrow." Chloe stared at him and he paused. "No?" She continued to stare at him. "I'll call them today?" She smiled her approval.

"I'm afraid to plug things in, if the television and refrigerator are on and you turn something else on, it's not pretty. If the air conditioner is running at the same time, it's even worse. So I have to keep the coffee machine unplugged unless I'm using it." She tapped her pen on the pile of paper next to her.

Oliver looked at her amazed. "It's serious enough that you have to keep the coffee machine unplugged. Isn't there any other way?"

"I need the computer and I need the modem and I need the air conditioner." Chloe sighed.

"You chose air conditioner over coffee?" Oliver picked at a scone.

"It was a hard decision and it was touch and go there for a while but its ninety two degrees outside and coffee is hot so I just turn the computer off when I need to make a pot." Chloe smiled.

Olive shook his head. "I'll make sure someone's over here today then."

"That would be much appreciated." Chloe grabbed a scone and took a bite.

"How's it going downstairs?" He got up and looked around.

"All of my stuff is sorted and put away. Now I'm trying to finish sorting through all this paper you have. Did you take every scrap of paper from every trash can from every lab you broke into?"

Oliver smiled. "Actually we left the trash alone, we emptied all the recycle bins though."

"Wait." Chloe looked at him astonished. "You really took all the paper."

"You never know what could be important." Oliver shrugged.

"Except you've never gone through them, not even once, not even to sort the lab reports from the take out menus." Chloe held up a menu for what looked like a Chinese restaurant then dumped it in the trash can next to her. Bart narrowed his eyes at her and pulled the menu back out, Chloe laughed.

"That's what you're here for." Oliver smiled at her and then stopped at the look on her face. "I mean, we could have gone through them but how would we, mere mortals, know the difference between something important and something useless."

"The flattery is nice but I'm sure even you, a mere mortal." She shut her computer down and walked to the kitchen. "Could tell the difference between an invoice for medical equipment and…" She searched through the papers she'd thrown away earlier and pulled something out. "And a very poorly written haiku."

Oliver smiled and walked over, grabbing the paper in her hands as she plugged in the coffee pot. He cleared his throat and read.

"Straight in through the light

Lost geese fly against the wind

Orange plastic tears"

"See what I mean?" Chloe raised her eyebrows.

"It's not so bad, it could be like our slogan or something, our mantra." Oliver smiled and hung it on the refrigerator, right next to the coffee pot.

"I don't even understand it." Chloe smiled.

"Ok. I just wanted to bring the scones and check on the progress, I've got a day full of meetings but if you need anything, just call me."

"You sure?" Chloe smiled at him. "Cause I could always call Emma and have her stand next to you while I give her a message."

"You're cute." Oliver tweaked her nose and walked to the door. "I'll get Emma to get an electrician out here ASAP."

"And a plumber." Chloe called after him.

**

* * *

**

October 16, 2008 (Day 1)

Chloe woke up startled, she had a feeling someone was watching her. "I bought you a very nice, very expensive mattress." Oliver said from his position standing over her. She sat up and rubber her neck, her eyes blinking rapidly. "I tried it out myself. Physically went in the store and laid on the mattress to make sure it was comfortable."

"Did you just let yourself in?" She asked yawning.

"I own the building." He pointed out. "And I knocked for twenty minutes. So why are you sleeping on the couch?" He asked.

"I was working late and by the time I finished, the guys had all crashed here, so I slept on the sofa." She stood up. "Is this going to be a normal thing, you letting yourself in before I've even had my coffee?" She walked into the kitchen and plugged in the coffee pot.

"Sorry." Oliver said. "I'll go back out and knock again if that will make you feel better."

"No, it's fine, don't worry." She fixed the coffee and turned the pot on, causing the outlet to blow. Chloe jumped back as flames shot up and engulfed the coffee pot and the side of the fridge, licking at top cabinets as the lights flickered and went out. "Fire." Chloe screamed and Oliver jumped forward, grabbing a towel and batting down the flames. When the fire was out and the coffee pot was a melted puddle of plastic and the side of the fridge sported a brand new scorch mark, Chloe groaned. "I forgot to turn the computer off last night." She said searching in the dark for a flashlight as Oliver bumped his way through the room to get to the curtains. He threw them open and shed a small sliver of light into the room. Chloe made her way in the hall closet and dug around looking for a flashlight.

"Hey, guys, what's all the noise about?" AC called from the hallway before Chloe and Oliver heard him bump loudly into the hall table. "Crap." He said a little more awake as the vase on the hall table fell to the floor and shattered. "What's up with the lights?"

"Coffee pot and computer." Chloe called back. "Aha." She yelled in triumph as she pulled a flashlight out and flicked it on. "We have light." She shined it around the room.

"Now what?" AC said frozen in place, being barefoot and not wanting move because of the broken glass.

"Breaker box?" Chloe asked Oliver.

"Don't look at me, I just own the place."

"I thought you were hands on?" Chloe joked.

"About the mattress, I was hands on about the mattress, and unfortunately that vase, I picked that out."

"It was very pretty." Chloe assured him. "Ok, if I were a breaker box where would I be?" She shined the flashlight around the room.

"Can we have maybe a broom and dustpan here?" AC called out.

"I got it." Oliver nodded at Chloe. "And a broom would be…"

"In the closet I just got the flashlight from." Chloe told him shining the flashlight around the room trying to find the breaker box. She looked in the back of the pantry and the laundry room with no luck. She heard Oliver sweeping up the glass and was heading to the back bedrooms to check for the breaker box there when something caught her eye. She walked up to the wall in the hallway and frowned, something was wrong over here. She'd seen something when she'd shone the flashlight over the wall.

"What?" Oliver and AC both looked where she was looking. "Do you see that?" She asked him pointing to the wall.

"See what?" Oliver squinted and got closer. Chloe leaned down and picked up one of the larger pieces of the broken vase. "Hey, careful." Oliver told her as she brought the sharp glass up to the wallpaper and sliced right through it. "What the hell Chloe?" Oliver watched astonished as she sliced a large rectangle in his wallpaper. She dropped the glass on the table and then grabbed an edge of the paper and pulled, revealing a silver steel door.

"They papered over it." Chloe said pulling the door open and flipping the main switch of the breaker. The lights came back on and she smiled.

"Nice." AC smiled at her.

Chloe reached for the dustpan to sweep up the broken glass and Oliver took it from her. "I got this. Why don't you go get some coffee?" Oliver motioned her away as he and AC started to pick up the glass.

Chloe nodded, stuffed her feet in some shoes and grabbed a jacket, thankful that she'd fallen asleep in her clothes. She pulled the jacket tighter as she walked out of the building and down the front steps. She practically bumped into a woman flying down the steps of the neighboring brownstone wearing a nightgown under a coat and pulling on a pair of oversized, unlaced work boots that Chloe guessed were probably not hers. "Wait, wait, I've got it, I've got it." She waved some quarters in the air but the meter maid didn't even pause while printing out the ticket. "No." The girl groaned. "I was right there, I was right there."

"Too late." The meter maid moved onto the next car. Chloe rounded the corner as the woman started a fight with the meter maid. She stepped out of the way when a bike messenger came tearing around the corner, jumped the curb and sped off into the street. Chloe was rolling her eyes when she heard it. Tires squealing, people screaming, and horrible, grating crash. She stopped and turned around horrified to see the biker and bike in a mangled mess in the middle of the intersection, a BMW smoking and crumpled by his side. "Oh God." Chloe put a hand to her mouth and watched as a woman got out of her car and ran to the biker, who was bloody and from what Chloe could tell, not breathing on the ground. She stood in shock until she heard the siren of the ambulance and assured it was under control, she returned to her coffee quest.

Chloe grabbed four cups from a street vendor and headed back to the Isis Foundation, passing the accident site as the biker was zipped into a body bag, passing the woman from before, still in her nightgown, this time yelling at a tow truck driver as he took her car away. She ran up the stairs, pushed the door open and stepped in the living room. The first step she took sent her sliding halfway across the room and she almost fell flat on her back but a red blur came out and grabbed her and the coffee. "Careful." Bart smiled as he set the coffee on the kitchen counter.

"What is going on here?" Chloe looked down and saw that she was standing in about an inch of water. "What happened?"

"Bart used the toilet." Victor emerged from the bathroom, soaking wet with his hands full of towels. "AC's in the basement shutting the water off." They looked as water continued to pour out of the bathroom. "Well trying to shut the water off."

"Is it leaking?" Chloe looked between Bart and Victor. "Downstairs?" Chloe suddenly had a vision of all of her very sophisticated equipment getting soaked with toilet water.

Victor and Bart looked at each other and shrugged. Chloe glared at them. "I should go check." Bart assured her. "I'll go check."

"You do that." Chloe snapped at him as she made her way carefully through the water to the bathroom. Oliver was on his knees, his suit soaked through, with a cell phone in his hands.

"No, the water is still on." Oliver said into the phone. "Because I'm staring at it as it pours out of the toilet." He paused. "I don't know which knob you turned but it was obviously not the right one."

"Did you turn off the toilet?" Chloe asked.

"What?" Oliver turned to look at her confused.

"The toilet." Chloe said. "There should be a water valve behind the toilet that you can turn off."

Oliver squinted and reached behind the toilet. "Huh, well, how about that." He smiled, turned the knob, and the water stopped flowing. "I fixed it."

"No you just stopped the water." Chloe reached in the cabinet and pulled more towels out. "But if you had called the plumber or the electrician like I asked you to, we wouldn't have this problem now would we?" Chloe pointed out.

"Right." Oliver stood up. "I dropped the ball on that didn't I?"

"Little bit." Chloe smiled. "I've got coffee in the kitchen." She handed him a towel and he dried off the best he could. They made their way to the kitchen and Chloe was about to take her first sip of deliciously hot coffee when a door slamming on the other side of the wall startled her.

"Jeremy this is not my fault." A female voice screamed through the wall.

"You got my car towed." A male voice screamed back.

"You got your car towed." The girl yelled. "I may have forgotten to feed the meter but the three other tickets were yours remember."

The man snorted in anger, obviously not having any way to defend that. "This was supposed to be my first day at the new job. My first day, without this job we can't pay the rent, we can't pay the rent we get kicked out, Jesus Julia. You better hope I can catch the bus and make it there on time." Chloe heard the door slam again and then what sounded like sobbing.

"Wow." Chloe said cautiously as she sipped her coffee. "So thin walls."

"Apparently." Oliver smiled. "We should probably remember not to shout across the room about our secret identities." He smirked.

"I'll put up a sign." Chloe smiled at him.

"I'm going to go change." He looked down. "I'm in meetings again today but I'll stop by later."

"You don't have to keep checking up on me." Chloe told him. "I know what I'm doing here you know."

"I know." Oliver opened the door. "Maybe I just like the company." He pointed out. "And the coffee." He lifted his cup.

"Electrician and Plumber." Chloe followed him out and called down the stairs. "And when you come back, I'm not letting you in unless you're holding a new coffee pot."

"Gotcha." Oliver called back.

* * *

Chloe worked for most of the day as the boys mopped the floor and cleaned up the mess they'd made. About two hours after Oliver left a messenger showed up with a state of the art coffee and cappuccino machine from Oliver wrapped in a pretty green bow. As they tried to figure out how to plug it in Chloe's cell phone rang. "No, I think you have to put the coffee grounds in before you turn it on." She told Victor. "Hello." She answered the phone cautiously. It was a number she didn't recognize.

"Hey Chloe." It was Lois, and judging by the sweet tone of her voice Chloe just knew that in a second she was going to regret answering the phone. "How's this great new job that you won't tell me about?" Lois called.

"Its fine, we're having coffee machine problems at the moment and it's not that I won't tell you about it." Chloe said for what felt like the 100th time. "It's just that I can't tell you everything about it. I may not be a doctor but counseling should have that same patient client privilege."

"Which, being a reporter I know is a code for I've got a secret I'm not telling you." Lois told her sullenly. "Wait, sorry, that's not why I called."

"Why did you call then?" Chloe winced as AC and Bart turned on the coffee machine and it groaned very loudly. "I don't think that's right." Chloe yelled over the noise as they scrambled to turn it off.

"Ok, well I sort of need your help." Lois said.

"With a story?" Chloe asked.

"More like for bail."

"Bail?" Chloe asked sitting down. "What do you mean bail?"

"I mean bail, as in, I've been arrested could you please come bail me out of jail." Lois said. "Ok, the guard is making a motion that I think means I need to hang up the phone. Either that or he's doing itsy, bitsy, spider."

"You're serious?" Chloe asked.

"No, he's a pretty big guy so it's probably not itsy bitsy spider."

"No I mean you're seriously in jail?" Chloe clarified.

"Yeah, but hey, you should feel special that you were my one phone call."

"I'm sure my hemorrhaging bank account loves it." Chloe hung up the phone. "Guys, I have to run an errand, please don't burn the place down."

"Don't worry." Victor smiled. "We got this, by the time you get back I'll have a fresh hot steaming cup of coffee for you."

"Here we go." Bart pushed a button and the lights in the apartment flickered then went out.

Chloe groaned. "Its fine, we got this." AC assured her and made his way to the breaker box.

Chloe finished signing the last paper as they brought Lois in from the back. "You owe me five thousand dollars."

"Five thousand?" Lois glared at the cop as he undid her handcuffs. "That's highway robbery."

"That's standard bail for breaking and entering, impersonating a police officer, and corporate espionage." Chloe pointed out.

"Corporate espionage." Lois rolled her eyes. "I took a few files and made some copies."

"Yeah, of LuthorCorps financial assets." Chloe said. "Lex was feeling generous today and you know it, you could have been in there on much bigger charges with no bail at all."

"Lex was just doing this make a point." Lois waved her off. "He'll drop all the charges when I give him a set of the copies and in six weeks when the article comes out there will be nothing he can do about it."

"Except for the fact that he owns the paper and he'll sort of see it when he gets final copy approval."

"I'll find a way around that." Lois waved her off. "Chloe you used to be a reporter, you know how this works, we have to skirt the law to get things to the public."

"So this was the right thing to do?" Chloe asked. "Then why isn't Clark in that cell with you?"

"Of course it was the right thing to do. LuthorCorp is earmarking millions of dollars that they claim is going to charity but is actually disappearing to dummy corporations that I can't seem to get a lead on." Lois said. "And Clark isn't really cut out for the breaking and entering part yet."

"Meaning you didn't tell him about it because he would have told you it was wrong." Chloe smiled then frowned. "Wait, dummy corporations?" Chloe asked interested. "What dummy corporations."

Lois looked at Chloe for a second and shook her head. "No way, not until I know more."

"Lois, I'm not a reporter anymore, it's not like I'm trying to steal your story." Chloe pointed out to her. "And I just loaned you five thousand dollars and got you out of jail."

Lois sighed. "Fine, we can get together later and I'll tell you all about it."

"Actually you can tell me when I bring you back to the Daily Planet." Chloe steered Lois toward her car.

"What do you mean when you bring me back?" Lois turned to her.

"Well as generous as Lex was feeling it did not extend to your car." Chloe said. "He had it impounded for parking on private LuthorCorp property and they aren't releasing it yet so you're either taking the bus or you're with me."

"Fine." Lois climbed in Chloe's car.

"So tell me about these dummy corporations." Chloe turned the car on. The more Lois talked about them, the more Chloe was sure that all of them were 33.1 fronts.

"I've been working on one of them for two weeks now, following the ownership back from shell company to shell company, trying to find a connection to LuthorCorp but I feel like I'm just running in circles."

"You want me to look into them?" Chloe offered.

"No. I've got this." Lois shook her head.

When they made it to the Daily Planet Chloe got out of the car and called Victor. "How's the coffee pot coming along?"

She heard a loud noise and a crash in the background and winced. "Maybe you should drop by Starbucks before you get home." Victor said apologetically.

"Why couldn't he just buy a normal coffee pot, like a normal person?" Chloe groaned hanging up her phone.

"Still having coffee machine problems?" Lois smiled. "Come on in, I'll buy you a cup, as a thank you."

"I've had that coffee, I made that coffee for three years. That is not how you thank a person." Chloe chuckled. "And it's definitely not worth five grand. Hey do you remember anything from working at the Talon about setting up cappuccino machines?"

"Chloe I've blocked every second of my time as a waitress from my subconscious and I wish you would too." Lois pointed out as they walked in and Chloe signed up for a visitors pass. "I'll go get the coffee. Here." Lois handed Chloe her bag.

Chloe clipped her visitor's badge on her shirt and made her way to Lois' desk. She set the bag down, looked to make sure no one was around and reached in and pulling out the copies that Lois stole from Lex. "Stealing now?" Clark asked.

Chloe quickly tucked the papers in her pocket and turned around. "It's for a good cause." Chloe smiled. "And she stole them first, you want to talk about ethics, talk to your partner whom I just bailed out of jail."

"First of all." Lois put a cup of coffee in Chloe's hand. "Not partners, never partners, we work together sometimes, when I choose to." Lois sat down. "And I said I'd pay you back."

"Do you think you could put in an order for re-imbursement with accounting, call it an office expense or something? You were on the clock when you got arrested doing your job." Chloe said.

"Are you really that hard up?" Lois asked.

"Having to dole out five thousand dollars at the spur of the moment would make anyone hard up and I didn't have that much to begin with. You know I'm just getting Isis off the ground."

"Yeah but you don't even have rent anymore because your mystery boss built you that nice cozy new apartment." Lois said. "And if he's throwing money at a counseling center that from what I can tell doesn't even have any clients, he can raise your salary." Chloe glared at Lois who raised her hands and stood up. "Fine I'll go talk to Steven, see if he can bill it with legal." Lois walked away.

"Is Oliver not paying you for all this work?" Clark asked concerned.

"Oliver is dying to throw money at me, I'm the one who's refusing." Chloe said. "I'm really not as hard up as I think I am, but do you have an easy time writing out five thousand dollar check?" Chloe asked.

"Point taken." Clark smiled.

"I don't really need a raise at the moment what I need is a plumber, an electrician and a coffee pot that doesn't need a nuclear scientist to operate." Chloe trailed off as she noticed the news rooms constant low murmur was suddenly at a fever pitch. Lois suddenly came running in the room. "Something's going on." Chloe looked around as Lois walked right past them and yanked the remote out of an intern's hand, turning on the news.

"You are never going to believe this." Lois said flipping the channels.

"To repeat, five minutes ago it was confirmed that Lex Luther died en route to Metropolis General at 6:05 p.m." The broadcaster said. Clark, Lois, and Chloe all leaned against the table and watched astonished. "There is no confirmed cause of death at this time but one paramedic said there were signs of poison and respiratory distress. The police have been questioning everyone who came in contact with Mr. Luther the hours preceding his death so it's fair to say they don't believe it was accidental."

"Lex Luther is dead?" Chloe asked shocked.

Clark sighed. "I can't believe this."

"I can't believe we weren't there." Lois snapped. "Keep up Smallvile, this is the story of the century, and we're sitting around here chit chatting." She grabbed her bag and then Clark's arm and pulled him towards the door.

Chloe just stared at the screen engrossed.

* * *

"So, have they released an official cause of death yet?" Oliver called from the kitchen where he was attempting to get the coffee machine working.

"Not yet." Chloe said supervising the electrician that was finally working on the wiring now that the plumber had come and gone. She came home in a daze over the news, barely registering that the screaming neighbors from that morning were being thrown out by the landlord. Chloe guessed the guy didn't make it to his job. "They aren't telling the press anything more since the paramedic let it slip that it was possibly poison."

"This is just all a little surreal." Oliver walked up behind her holding out a steaming fresh cup of coffee.

"You fixed the machine." Chloe smiled.

"Uh no." He shook his head sheepishly. "I bought a new one. Very simple, add grounds, add water, press start."

"That's all I needed in the first place." She told him. "So what does this mean for us?"

"Us?" Oliver asked her confused.

"Yeah, us, the JLA." Chloe whispered glancing at the electrician. "I mean with Lex gone what are we doing?"

"Well his company is still around, and all his labs, so I guess we're just going to have to play it by ear." Oliver shrugged. "At least we won't have to worry about Lex being one step ahead of us."

"Yeah I guess that's something." Chloe sighed. It almost felt like the first deep breath she'd had in a while.

"All done here Miss." The electrician packed up his box and smiled at her. "Just a small short, everything's ok now."

"You mean I can turn on more than one appliance?" Chloe smiled.

"You can turn all of them on if you like but I wouldn't suggest it, that would be one outrageous electric bill." He nodded.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you." She actually threw her arms around him and put a big sloppy kiss on his cheek then showed him out of the door.

"I should get going too." Oliver smiled. "Hey you could actually have an early night tonight."

"I could sleep in my own bed." Chloe smiled.

"That mattress really is amazing." Oliver assured her.

"Good night Oliver." Chloe smiled shutting the door behind him.

**

* * *

**

October 16, 2008 (Day 147)

"Hold it right that. That's not what happened." McClane shook her head. "Lex Luther was stabbed." She reminded Chloe. "By you." She pointed out. "And he died at 8:00 not 6:05, which you know because you were there, because you killed him."

"Ok, that's really getting old." Chloe rolled her eyes. "First of all, that's what happened this time around, the first time he was poisoned at 6:05. He's been shot, he's been drowned, he's been killed in probably every way you could possibly think of and not all of them were murder, some of them were actually accidents. Second of all, what happened tonight was an accident. I didn't kill him, I didn't stab him, I didn't poison him or drown him or set him on fire…"

"He was set on fire?" Powell asked.

"Yeah twice." Chloe sighed. "If you want to get technical, the time when his car drove off the bridge was possibly my fault, ok technically my fault because I was driving but I needed to talk to him and he wasn't listening to me and, you know he drove off the bridge like twice before, so that's one more time that I did." Chloe shrugged.

"So what are you saying? Every day you re-live, Lex Luther dies?" Powell asked trying to keep Chloe on track.

"Every single day." Chloe said tiredly. "Which is what I was doing there tonight, trying to stop it. You see Lex's death is the only thing I can't seem to change. No matter what I do, no matter what I change, no matter what I stop, Lex Luther has died 147 times."

"Cause you killed him."

"Ok, does she have to be here for this?" Chloe asked annoyed. "I'm trying to tell a very important, and if I do say so myself, entertaining story. There are other things I could be doing right now, probably other things that I should be doing, but instead I'm spending my time here with you guys."

"You're here with us because we arrested you." McClane said.

"Trust me, if I didn't want to be here, I wouldn't be." Chloe told her so seriously that it actually took McClane aback slightly.

"She'll sit quietly." Powell said, glaring at McClane then turning to Chloe. "Continue."

"Thank you." Chloe smiled at Powell.

"Tell me the truth here, are you really buying into all this?" McClane asked.

"Whether I'm buying it or not, it's an interesting story and it beats paperwork." He shrugged.

"I'm glad to see you're in this with an open mind." Chloe rolled her eyes.

"I'm open, my mind is open." Powell said. "Continue."


	4. Chapter 4

**October 16, 2008 (Day 2)**

Chloe woke up startled, again, she had a feeling someone was watching her, again. "I bought you a very nice, very expensive mattress." Oliver said. Chloe sat up confused. "I tried it out myself. Physically went in the store and laid on the mattress to make sure it was comfortable." He smiled.

"Did you just let yourself in again?" Chloe asked yawning. She looked around trying to figure out how she got on the couch.

"Again?" He looked at her confused. "I own the building." Oliver pointed out. "I knocked for like twenty minutes. So why are you sleeping on the couch?" He asked.

"I went to sleep on the bed and the mattress is amazing." She scratched her head. "I must have gotten up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep." She walked into the kitchen and frowned when she noticed the coffee pot was unplugged. She shook her head and plugged it back in, starting a pot.

"Sorry." Oliver said. "If the walking in bothers you that much, I'll go back out and knock again." Oliver offered.

"No, it's fine, don't worry." She turned the coffee pot on, something nagging in the back of her mind as the outlet blew. Chloe jumped back and grabbed a towel, batting out the flames as the lights went out. She groaned and put on a pot holder to pull the plug from the outlet . "I thought the electrician fixed this." Chloe sighed.

"I forgot to call the electrician." Oliver said. "I'm sorry, did you leave the computer on last night or something?" Oliver asked.

"The electrician came yesterday and said he fixed everything." Chloe complained grabbing a knife from the counter and walking to the hallway.

"Hey, guys, what's all the noise about?" AC called and then bumped into the table. "Crap." Chloe heard something break again.

"Coffee pot and computer." Chloe stepped around the glass went to open the breaker box only to see the wallpaper intact again. She frowned. "Did you repaper this yesterday?"

"What?" AC asked, still half asleep and frozen in place.

Chloe shook her head and reached down grabbing a piece of broken glass and slicing into the wallpaper again. "What are you doing?" Oliver asked shocked as Chloe finished cutting the paper and pulled it away to reveal the breaker box. "How did you know that was there?"

"I just…." Chloe trailed off as she flipped the main switch and the lights turned back on. She noticed that the piece of glass was the same one she'd used the day before. A piece of the vase that had been broken and thrown in the trash. "Did you glue this back together?" She asked AC and Oliver confused.

"Yesterday?" AC raised an eyebrow as Chloe reached into the closet and grabbed the broom.

"I got this, why don't you go get some coffee?" Oliver took the broom from her and started sweeping.

Chloe nodded, pulled her shoes on and grabbed a jacket, not being able to shake this feeling that something was weird about this day. She practically bumped into the same girl from yesterday, the girl she could have sworn had gotten kicked out of the building. "Wait, wait, I've got it, I've got it." The girl waved the quarters in the air and the meter maid didn't even pause as she printed out a ticket. "No." The girl groaned. "I was right there, I was right there."

"Too late." The meter maid moved onto the next car. Chloe rounded the corner hearing the woman start a fight with the meter maid. She jumped out of the way again as the same bike messenger, the one she saw zipped up into a body bag the day before practically ran her over and sped off into the street. She suddenly knew what was going to happen and reached out her hand but she was too late. Chloe heard it again, tires squealing, people screaming, and large crash. She stopped and closed her eyes, she didn't want to turn around, she had to turn around. She knew what she was going to see but it still caught her off guard. There was the biker and the bike, just like the day before, and the same BMW smoking and crumpled. "This is getting crazy." Chloe turned around, the ambulance blaring in the distance as she ran to the closest news stand.

She grabbed the Daily Planet and frowned staring at the date. "October 16, 2008." She shook her head. "Do you have today's paper yet?" Chloe asked the agent.

"That is today's paper." He grumbled.

"No this is yesterdays paper." Chloe held it up. "October 16th."

"Lady today is October 16th." The agent said.

"No today is October 17th, Friday."

"Today is Thursday." The agent shook his head and moved to another customer.

"What the hell?" Chloe mumbled. She paid for the paper and then grabbed four cups of coffee and walked back to the Isis Foundation. She hurried past the accident site as they zipped the biker in the body bag again. She passed the same woman, yelling at the tow truck, driver again. She shook her head and ran up the stairs, now really freaked out and threw the door open, only to slide across the floor. "Shit." She tried not to fall on her ass when Bart swooped out of nowhere and grabbed her.

"Careful."

"What…" She looked to the bathroom where the water was flowing out. "You used the toilet." She sighed.

"I forgot Chloe, I'm sorry."

"Make sure it's not flooding downstairs yeah?" She pushed him away and walked into the bathroom where Oliver was sitting on the floor with Victor next to him.

"No, the water is still on." Oliver said into the phone. "Because I'm staring at it as it pours out of the toilet." He paused. "I don't know which knob you turned but it was obviously not the right one."

"Turn off the valve behind the toilet." Chloe told Oliver.

Oliver squinted and reached behind the toilet. "Huh, well, how about that." He smiled as he turned a knob and the water stopped. "I fixed it."

"No you stopped the water." Chloe reached in the cabinet and pulled more towels out and glared at him.

"I know, I forgot to call the plumber and the electrician." Oliver said sheepishly.

"I've got coffee in the kitchen." She handed him a towel and walked away. "Is this day familiar to you?"

"What do you mean?" Oliver asked. "Like Déjà vu?"

"Sort off." Chloe paused when the door slammed and the screaming started again.

"Jeremy this is not my fault." The girl from next door screamed.

"You got my car towed." A male voice screamed back.

"You got your car towed." The girl yelled. "I may have forgotten to feed the meter but the three other tickets were yours remember."

"This was supposed to me my first day at the new job. My first day, without this job we can't pay the rent, we can't pay the rent we get kicked out, Jesus Julia. You better hope I can catch the bus and make it there on time." They heard a door slam again and then sobbing.

"Wow, so thin walls." Oliver said. "We should probably remember not to shout across the room about our secret identities." He smirked.

"I'll put up a sign." Chloe said absentmindedly. "They're going to get kicked out."

"You don't know that, maybe he'll make it and everything will be ok." Oliver looked at his watch. "I'm gonna go change. I'm in meetings again today but I'll stop by later." Chloe just nodded at him. "Hey I don't want you to think I think you don't know what you're doing. I just like the company." He pointed out. "And the coffee." He lifted his cup and walked to the door.

"Electrician and Plumber." Chloe called after him. "And a new coffee pot."

"Gotcha." Oliver called back.

Chloe sat down at the table and redid the work she'd done the day before as the boys mopped up the mess. Again, about two hours after Oliver left a messenger showed up with the same state of the art coffee and cappuccino machine from Oliver wrapped in the same pretty green bow. "Crap." Chloe looked at it and sighed, knowing she wouldn't have fresh coffee today, again. As Victor and Bart tried to set it up Chloe questioned them.

"So none of this is familiar to you?" Chloe asked. "Nothing?"

"If this was familiar to me, do you think it would have taken me two hours to figure out how to plug it in?" Victor asked.

"Ok, I'm not talking about the machine, I'm talking about today, I mean you don't feel like you've lived this before?" Chloe asked.

"Like Déjà vu?" Bart asked.

"No, I mean…" Chloe's phone rang and she gave up to answer it. "Hey Lois."

"Hey Chloe." Lois' said. "How's this great new job that you won't tell me about?" Lois asked.

"You need bail?" Chloe remembered the day before.

"I…how did you know?" Lois asked confused.

"Lucky guess." Chloe grabbed her bag. "It's gonna be five thousand dollars, you owe me big."

"There's no way it's five thousand, that's highway robbery."

" I'll be there in a minute." Chloe hung up. "Guys, just give it up. Trust me, you're not gonna get it."

"We will never surrender." Victor joked as Bart pushed a button and shot a face full of steam right at Victor.

Chloe finished signing the last paper as they brought Lois in from the back. "I told you, five thousand dollars."

Lois glared at the cop as he undid her handcuffs. "And I told you, highway robbery." She grabbed the papers, read them over and scoffed. "Corporate espionage? I took a few files and made some copies."

"Of private LutherCorp Financial papers." Chloe pointed out as Lois opened her mouth to protest and Chloe cut her off. "I know he's hiding millions of dollars in Dummy Corporations that he's claiming is going to charity but you can't keep egging Lex on like this. He owns the paper and he's your boss and he's not letting you off your leash, he's just giving you enough slack to hang yourself." Chloe sighed. "I know this from personal experience."

"How did you know about the Dummy Corporations?" Lois asked confused.

"I have my ways." Chloe smiled. "Get in, Lex had your car towed, I'll give you a ride for a cup of coffee."

"Deal." Lois sighed.

When Chloe got to the Daily Planet her phone beeped and she pulled it out, she had a text message from Victor. "Can you grab some Starbucks on your way home?" She shook her head and walked in the building, getting her visitor's pass and walking to Lois' desk as she went in search of coffee.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" Clark asked as Chloe took in the newsroom, feeling like there was something she was forgetting.

"Bailing your partner out of jail for a multitude of felony charges." Chloe smiled.

"First of all." Lois put a cup of coffee in Chloe's hand. "Not partners, never partners, we work together sometimes, when I choose to." Lois sat down. "And I said I'd pay you back."

"Would you mind trying to get legal to reimburse me? Like sooner rather than later?" Chloe asked.

Lois looked confused but nodded and walked off. "Is Oliver not paying you enough?" Clark asked.

"No, I need to talk to you for a minute alone." Chloe grabbed Clark's arm. "Something strange is going on here. I'm stuck in some sort of time loop or something."

"What?" Clark asked confused.

"I've lived this day before." Chloe said. "All of it, the coffee pot blowing up, the toilet over flowing, Lois getting arrested, all of this."

"Ok, you lived this day before?" Clark asked. "I've never heard of anything like this, I mean are you sure, you sure you didn't just have a really vivid dream or maybe it's Déjà vu?"

"Clark, it's not a dream, it's not Déjà vu." Chloe shook her head. "Lois is going to come back and grab the remote from Tim over there because…" Chloe trailed off remembering. "Oh crap, Lex."

"Lex?" Clark asked and watched as Chloe grabbed the remote from Tim and flipped through the channels, just as she found what she was looking for, the news room burst into a furry and Lois came storming in.

"You are never going to believe this." Lois said as Chloe nodded to the television.

"To repeat, five minutes ago it was confirmed that Lex Luther died en route to Metropolis General at 6:05 p.m." The broadcaster said. Clark, Lois, and Chloe all leaned against the table and watched. "There is no confirmed cause of death at this time but one paramedic said there were signs of poisoning and respiratory distress and the police have been questioning everyone who came in contact with Mr. Luther the hours proceeding his death so it's fair to say they don't believe it was accidental."

"Lex Luther is dead?" Chloe said shocked. "Again."

"I can't believe this."

"I can't believe we weren't there." Lois snapped. "Keep up Smallvile, this is the story of the century, and we're sitting around here chit chatting." She grabbed her bag and then Clark's arm and pulled him towards the door.

"Holy crap." Chloe shook her head, wondering for the hundredth time what the hell was happening to her.

"So, have they released an official cause of death yet?" Oliver called from the kitchen.

"No." Chloe shook her head sitting on the couch, wondering why this was happening.

"I saw the neighbors getting thrown out on my way over." Oliver looked over at Chloe. "How did you know that he wouldn't make it?"

She opened her mouth as he handed her a cup of coffee, she wanted to tell him everything, she wanted to have him help her figure out what was going on but she was tired, she'd done this day twice already and she just wanted to go to bed and put it behind her. "Lucky guess." She smiled. "You never got the other one working did you?"

"No, bought a newer simpler one." He shrugged and noticed she seemed really distracted, sort of out of it. "Chloe…" Oliver started to say something when the electrician came in.

"All done miss." He smiled and Chloe showed him to the door.

"I should get going too." Oliver smiled. "Well, with all that happened, you could actually have an early night tonight."

"I could sleep in my own bed." Chloe smiled.

"That mattress really is amazing." Oliver assured her.

"Good night Oliver." Chloe smiled shutting the door on him.

**

* * *

**

October 16, 2008 (Day 3)

Chloe woke up startled, again, she had a feeling someone was watching her, again. "I bought you a very nice, very expensive mattress." Oliver said. She sat up quickly and looked around. "I tried it out myself. Physically went in the store and laid on the mattress to make sure it was comfortable." He pointed out.

"What's the date?" Chloe asked.

"What?" Oliver asked confused. "It's Thursday, October 16th."

"Again?" Chloe fell back against the couch and groaned. "You have got to be kidding me."

**

* * *

**

October 16, 2008 (Day 147)

"He was poisoned the second day too?" McClane asked. "I thought you said it was different every time."

"Well the first couple of days it was poison, always poison, it wasn't until I started changing things that he started dying differently." Chloe explained.

"So what you changed something and he died differently?" Powell asked. "How does that work exactly?"

"I'm not sure entirely, it's like the Butterfly Effect." Chloe shrugged. " You know, a butterfly flaps its wings in New York you get a hurricane in India."

"What was your butterfly?" McClane asked.

"The bike messenger." Chloe said.

"The one who got hit by the BMW?" McClane said confused.

"I saved him, knocked him off of his bike, so he never ran out into the street, the car didn't hit him, he didn't die." Chloe shrugged.

"And that caused Lex to die differently?" Powell said.

"Not differently, just sooner." Chloe explained. "The bike accident caused a traffic jam the first few times, Lex was supposed to have a lunch meeting at Pino's but because of the accident he missed it and rescheduled it to a dinner meeting. Without the accident he kept his lunch date and was poisoned at lunch instead of dinner."

"So someone at Pino's was poisoning him?" McClane asked.

"Yeah I figured that one out." Chloe rolled her eyes. "It was a waiter, he'd been fired Lex's personal waiter for years. Lex was constantly humiliating him, belittling him, but still requesting him. The guy had just had enough. He was mad and stupid. He just wanted to make him sick or even humiliate Lex for a change, but he didn't realize that putting the stuff in his alcohol would make it worse."

"So then the next time around you stopped him?" Powell said. "The waiter?"

"Locked him in the walk in freezer." Chloe smiled. "Lex had lunch, wasn't poisoned went back to work and then..."

"Then what?" McClane asked.

"While he was leaving LuthorCorp later that night, he was mugged and shot in the parking lot."

"So no matter what you did, Lex still died." Powell leaned back in his chair.

"No matter what I did." Chloe shrugged. "And believe me I tried everything."

"Why?" McClane asked.

"Why what?" Chloe looked confused.

"Why did you keep trying to save him?" McClane asked.

Chloe sighed, she'd asked herself that question countless times before. "I had to." She shrugged. "Lex's death was the only constant. I could stop the bike messenger, I could stop the neighbors from getting evicted, I could stop Lois from getting arrested, but I couldn't stop Lex's death, I could only change it." She shrugged. "I just, I guess I thought that if I could just stop him from dying, I could make it to Friday. It drove me a little crazy, yet at the same time, it's was kept me sane."

"How's that?" Powell asked.

"It gave me something to do, a reason to keep going, But still, this isn't the first time I've been arrested on this day, you guys aren't the first people to mistakenly believe that I'm responsible for Lex's death." Chloe smiled. "I did everything I could think of to keep him from dying, following him around, warning him, hiding his car keys, nothing worked so I went bigger."

**

* * *

**

October 16, 2008 (Day 43)

"Sullivan, visitor." Chloe lifted her head up from her knees and unfolded her legs.

"Visiting hours are over." Chloe said confused.

"Well you're just so darn special." The guard looked at her. She stood up slowly and stretched. There was no reason to rush. She followed the guard down the hall and into a room and was told to sit down.

A few seconds later the door opened and she inched her head up from the table a little bit to see the surprised and concerned face of Oliver Queen staring at her.

"Chloe?" He whispered slightly. It was definitely a shock when he got the call from Clark and even more of a shock that he was standing in a room, in the Metropolis police station, seeing Chloe Sullivan sitting before him with shackles around her wrists and ankles, wearing a bright orange jumpsuit. She tilted her head up a little further and Oliver practically launched himself at the table to grab her face in his hands. "What happened to you?"

"Nothing." Chloe said putting her head back down to hide the black eye, split lip and bruised cheek.

"That's not nothing." Oliver motioned to her face before seating himself in front of her. "Chloe tell me what happened?"

"Just a misunderstanding about bunk ownership. Drop it Oliver." She pleaded with him.

"Can you take these things off of her please?" He motioned to the guard then at Chloe's shackles.

"No." He shook his head and Oliver raised an eyebrow. "The charges are first degree murder. The restraints stay."

Chloe swallowed hard when he heard the man say that. "Murder." She shook her head and forced a smile on her lips. "It's all right Oliver, they're not that bad." She assured him. "What are you doing here?"

"What do you mean what am I doing here?" He seemed surprised. "You're in jail."

"You can ask me I won't be offended." Chloe offered him.

"I don't have to ask you." Oliver said sadly.

"Yes you do. You don't believe anything unless you hear it from the horses mouth, but you're not going to get off easy, you have to ask." Chloe prompted him.

"Chloe…" Oliver pleaded with her not to make him do this. He wanted to trust that what she'd told the police and Lois was the truth but she was right he wasn't going to be able to do that unless he asked personally. "Did you kill Lex?"

"No." She shook her head and didn't tear her eyes away from his for a single second. "I hated him, I wished him dead on more than my fair share of occasions, I've even entertained the thought, several times, but I did not kill him."

"But you did break into his penthouse. You admitted to that." Chloe nodded her head. "They found you standing over his body holding the gun that shot him

"I…Nothing." Chloe said so suddenly that Oliver knew she was lying.

"Chloe…" Oliver sighed. "There are phone records from his office and cell phone, you'd called him twenty times today alone. Why?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Chloe smiled and shook her head at him. She still didn't even believe it herself and she was right there.

_**Earlier That Day**_

_Chloe's plan wasn't the best she'd ever come up with, wasn't even good but it was day 43 and she was one more exploding coffee pot from going completely insane. After putting out the fire in the kitchen, watching Julia's car get towed, knocking the biker off his bike, leaving five messages on Lois' phone hoping they would keep her from breaking into LuthorCorp, and then coming home to another flooded living room, even Bart's hopeful smile couldn't make her feel better. She stood in the living room, staring in disbelief for about five minutes as water continued to pour out from the bathroom and Oliver screamed at AC over the phone. When she heard Jeremy storm in next door after having been fired from his job and start a screaming match with Julia Chloe couldn't take it anymore. _

_She walked downstairs into the Isis Foundation, opened the hidden safe and pulled out the gun that Lana kept there. She tucked in the back of her pants and left the building. She decided to go for the direct approach. She called Lex and told him flat out that he was going to die today. He laughed in her face, told her he didn't respond to empty threats and hung up. She called back and got his voicemail and formulated what she was now referring to as "Operation Chloe Is An Idiot". She followed Lex for the rest of the day, trying to find an opening, continued to call him only to get his voicemail and when he went home around seven to change for diner Chloe saw it. _

_She broke into the Penthouse and found him in the bedroom. She pulled the gun out of her waistband and cocked it, the sound making Lex turn around. He looked at Chloe, looked at the gun and then smiled. "Wait a minute." He said to her. "You were serious?" He turned around and Chloe looked at him confused. _

_She didn't understand what he meant then she remembered the gun in her hand. "What this?" She shook her head. "If I wanted you to die all I'd have to do is sit at home and read a magazine. Trust me, I'm not here to kill you." _

_"Really?" He sat down on the bed and untied his shoes. "The breaking and entering and the gun don't really support that." _

_"This is just for protection." Chloe said. _

_"Against me?" He asked her, his tone still amused._

_"No, for you." Chloe sat down in the chair in the corner and put her feet up on the foot stool. "Which you would know if you bothered to answer your phone." _

_"What exactly are you talking about Chloe?" Lex heard something in the tone of her voice. _

_"I told you Lex, you are going to die today." Chloe laid the gun on her knee and nodded at him. "You can finish getting dressed. You've got a diner meeting at Pipper's don't you?"_

_"How do you know that?" He pulled his tie over his head. _

_"I know alot." Chloe said. "And I know that at some point today you're going to die. Except today, I'm going to be there to stop it." _

_"So you're convinced that I'm going to die today and you took it upon yourself to become my own personal bodyguard whether I like it or not?" Lex scoffed walking into the closet to change. _

_"That pretty much sums it up in a nut shell." Chloe nodded. _

_"So what's the plan?" He called out. "You just going to follow me around?"_

_"Stuck to your side until 12:01." Chloe said. _

_"How is this supposed to happen exactly?" Lex walked out buttoning up his shirt. "My death?"_

_"It's different every time." Chloe shrugged. _

_"Every time?" Lex paused._

_"Yeah." Chloe's eyes were darting around the room, looking for any potential danger and chuckled. "Yesterday you fell into a manhole. Did not see that one coming." _

_"Yesterday?" Lex asked slowly. "Yesterday I died?"_

_Chloe turned to look at him. "Yeah. Fell into an open manhole crossing the street, talking on your cell phone." _

_"Ok." Lex walked over to her slowly and she sat up straighter. _

_"Oh no, you're giving me that look." Chloe stood up annoyed. _

_"What look is that?" Lex asked. _

_"That look that says you were humoring me before because it didn't seem dangerous and now your thinking that maybe I've gone off the deep end." Chloe took a step away from him and walked to the phone. She pulled the plug out of the wall. Lex took a step to the side lunging for his jacket. "It's even worse because you know about my mom." She lifted the gun up and aimed it at him, he froze. "You know I have a family history of mental illness." She waved the gun to the right indicating that Lex should sit down. He obliged and she grabbed his jacket, pulled his cell phone from the pocket, turned it off and slipped it in her pocket. "I'm not crazy Lex."_

_"Of course you aren't." He said in a pacifying tone. "You came in here to protect me and now you're holding me hostage. You claim that I'm going to die today because I died yesterday. You're perfectly sane." _

_"Well when you put it like that." Chloe sighed and ran a hand over her face. "It does sound kind of crazy." _

_"Yeah." Lex nodded. _

_"You're going to love this then." Chloe laughed and then told him about everything, about how she was repeating the days, about how Lex had died 42 times, how she had to stop him from dying if she ever wanted to make it to Friday. "How's that for crazy?" _

_Lex just stared at her for a second. "You're serious?" He asked her. "I mean completely serious." _

_"Look, you lived in Smallville. You know all the things that are possible in this world." Chloe told him. "Invisible attackers, thieves who can walk through walls, so many more. And you know me. You know me Lex, give me five hours. That's it, five hours. If nothing happens, if that clocks strikes 12:01 and you're still here and I'm still here, you can call the police, you can call Belle Reeve, you can do whatever you want." _

_"I'm going to die today?" Lex asked after a minute. Chloe seemed surprised that he accepted it so easily. "Five hours huh?" He rubbed his neck and looked up at her. "In this room with you?" She laughed at the horrified expression on his face. "You got a deck of cards?" _

_They sat there for a couple of hours, watching the clock, avoiding talking to each other as much as possible. Chloe knew she was at a unique advantage, she was in a situation, locked in a room with Lex Luther and a gun. There were so many things that she could find out, about 33.1, about his work, so many things that she wanted to say to him about things that he'd done to her, things that she'd done to him, but none of that mattered to her right then. Lex seemed to realize it too, it was almost as if, without saying anything they'd both decided to call a truce, at least until 12:01. The gun had been set on the footstool and Chloe and Lex were on the floor playing an imporvised version of Texas Hold'em. They couldn't find playing cards so they created thier own deck out of a stack of Lex's business cards. "Full House." Chloe said lying her cards on the ground. Lex groaned and leaned back against the bed. _

_"Ok, I'm done." He pulled himself up and Chloe scrambled to her feet. _

_"Where are you going?" She put a hand against his chest to stop him and he looked at her confused. _

_"The bathroom." _

_"Wait, just let me check it out first." Chloe walked to the door. _

_"You want to check out my bathroom?" Lex said. "Do you think there's a homicidal shower nozzle in there?" _

_"You'd be surprised." Chloe said under her breath as she walked to the bathroom. _

_"Wait." Lex called to her with an amused tone in his voice. "You might want to take the gun." He grabbed it off the footstool and headed to the bathroom. "Incase the shower curtain tries a sneak attack." _

_"Lex stop." Chloe called from the doorway, a load of towels in her hand. She was too late, he saw the puddle of water leaking from the sink a second before his foot hit the ground. He slipped and fell backwards, the gun flying in the air as Chloe dropped the towels and lunged forward. People say sometimes that certain situations moved in slow motion, this wasn't one of them. Before the towels hit the ground the gun slammed into the doorframe of the bathroom going off accidently. Chloe jumped and caught it before it hit the ground and went off again and took a deep breath. "Thank God. That was close." She smiled down at Lex, ready to pull him up and then she saw the blood stain on his shirt, saw the puddle forming on the ground around him. _

_"You have got to be kidding me." Chloe screamed. That's when security guard busted in the room and found her standing over Lex's body with the gun in her hand._

"Chloe." Oliver's voice brought her back to the present, back to the police station.

"What?" She smiled at him.

"Were you working for Lex?" Chloe shook her head no. "Was he blackmailing you?" Chloe again, shook her head no. "Were you sleeping with him?" Oliver said more slowly.

"Oh God no." Chloe shook her head more emphatically.

Oliver didn't understand why he felt so relieved. He slowly reached his hand across the table top and Chloe smiled placing hers on top of his. "I've got my lawyers coming in here as soon as they can, don't worry you won't be in here long."

"I know." She smiled softly.

Oliver sighed and ran his hands over his face. "I really have to go now, I'll be back tomorrow I promise." He squeezed her hand slightly.

"No rush, I won't be here." She smiled at him.

The guard snorted and Chloe just leaned back in her seat. "You won't be here?" Oliver asked confused.

"No." Chloe shook her head. "But it won't matter anyway because tomorrow won't be tomorrow. It'll just be today, again."

"Chloe, are you sure you're ok?" Oliver leaned over the table.

"Don't worry about me Oliver." She grabbed his wrist and pulled it toward her so she could see his watch 11:58. "In two minutes you won't even remember this because it won't have happened."

"Going for an insanity plea are you?" The guard asked walking over to her. "Times up. Let's go." Chloe smiled at Oliver as she was pulled out of the interview room and brought back to her cell.

"Saw your visitor Sullivan. That you're lawyer?" The woman in the cell across from her asked.

"No." Chloe shook her head. _Fifty seven seconds._ "Just a friend."

"Wish I had a friend like that." Another woman called down the hall.

"Must have money, he looked like he had money." Another one said.

"Money's the only way to get in here at midnight." The first woman scoffed.

"Didn't tell us you have money." Chloe's cell mate and the woman who gave her the new face said interested.

"I don't." Chloe smiled at her. _Twenty two seconds_. She thought to herself. She'd been counting since she saw Oliver's watch, saw what time it was. Her cell mate just scoffed.

"Lights out ladies." The guard called down the hall.

"You going to bed?" The woman asked Chloe.

"I don't sleep." Chloe shook her head. _Five Seconds_. "Not anymore." Chloe said smiling. _Three, Two, One._

**

* * *

**

October 18, 2008 (Day 44)

Chloe sat bolt upright and checked her surroundings. "I bought you a very nice, very expensive mattress."

"I know." Chloe stood up. "You picked it out yourself. It's great really."

Oliver stood there confused for a second. "You ok?"

"Peachy." Chloe smiled at him. "I've just got a busy day ahead of me."

Chloe watched the house burn, flames licked the dark night sky and if she concentrated really hard she could block out the sights and sounds of the police cars and fire trucks. If she tried hard enough she could block out everything, and then it was just her and the fire, and the ruins of what once was the Luther Mansion, and it was good. She watched a large section of the roof buckle and then tumble to the ground, with a noise unlike any other she'd ever heard, she giggled. "What are you laughing at?" The cop next to her grumbled and Chloe turned to him smiling.

"Nothing." Chloe shrugged, which admittedly was quite difficult what with her hands cuffed behind her back.

"Have a good laugh now, you won't be doing it much longer." He snorted before turning back to his partner. Chloe glanced at the clock in the dashboard of the cop car, 11: 53, she still had a few minutes to enjoy the view.

"Chloe!" A frantic voice called out from the crowd that was gathering and she turned around to see Oliver pushing his way to the front of the throngs of people who'd dragged themselves out of bed to see the castle burn. Her smile faltered, he looked worried, and scared, and pissed.

He made his way to the front of the people, tried to move past the barricades but was stopped by another officer. "I'm fine." Chloe called out to Oliver. He got as close as he could get, walking down the barricades and stopping in front of her.

"What's going on?" He asked, noticing for the first time the cuffs she was in. "Why are you under arrest?"

"Arson." The cop who'd arrested her said. "Among other things."

"Arson? But she didn't…she couldn't…" Oliver stuttered.

"Caught her red handed, even gave us a confession." The cop smiled.

"Chloe, I'll get you a lawyer, don't say anything else." Oliver told her sternly. She looked at the clock again, 11:54

"It's ok Oliver." She smiled at him. "I did it, I finally did it. There are only 6 minutes left in the day and he's still alive."

"Whose still alive, what are you talking about?" Oliver asked her.

"Lex, he's still alive. You see it was all happening in Metropolis, always Metropolis, so I figured I just had to get him out of the city. But nothing worked. I tried making appointments, faking meetings, I even made up an award and a banquet held in his honor, but he sent someone else to accept it on his behalf." Oliver squinted trying to keep up with her but failing. "But finally I figured if something happened to his precious house he'd come and he did. The officer said he was on the way, so he's still alive and that means tomorrow will be Friday."

"You didn't hear?" Oliver frowned at her.

"Hear what?" Chloe froze. "Hear what?"

"It just happened so I guess you wouldn't have heard yet." Oliver said wondering what this had to do with anything. "There was a ten car pile up on the highway down here, I was stuck in the traffic forever. Lex's car was crushed by an eighteen wheeler, they say he died on impact."

"How?" Chloe asked. "How is that possible."

"The driver fell asleep at the wheel is what they were saying on the news. I guess he was coming down here because of the…" Oliver trailed off and looked at the fire.

"Great, now I'm causing it." Chloe closed her eyes. "I don't know how much longer I can do this Oliver."

"Do what? What's going on?" Oliver asked her.

Chloe checked the clock. 11:59. "We don't have time now, I'll explain everything when it's Friday, if it ever is Friday again." She leaned against the car and closed her eyes.

**

* * *

**

October 16, 2008 (Day 45)

Chloe didn't bother to open her eyes she knew what she would see, Oliver standing there over her with a smile on his face. "I bought you a very nice, very expensive mattress." Oliver said and Chloe just groaned and pulled the throw blanket over her head.

**

* * *

**

October 16, 2008 (Day 147)

"I gave up for a while. Just kicked everyone out of the house and locked myself in, I thought maybe if I did nothing, but it didn't work, he just went back to being poisoned at Pinos." Chloe shrugged.

"So what did you do?" McClane asked.

"You're intrigued." Chloe looked pretty pleased with herself. "I knew you'd be intrigued."

"It's better than paperwork." McClane groaned.

"Yeah, do you think we could maybe get some sort of desert, some coffee." Chloe said and McClane groaned. "I'll tell you about the day everything changed." She dangled that piece of information in front of their faces and they exchanged looks, those types of looks that partners give each other, partners who have worked together for a long time where an entire conversation could be had using only facial expressions.

"You like tiramisu?" Powell finally asked.

Chloe smiled.

Twenty minutes later Chloe was sipping the best coffee she'd had in about sixty days and the best tiramisu she'd had, ever. "Where did you get this again?" She asked, scraping the last bit of crème and chocolate off of her plate.

"A little hole in the wall Italian place off Baxter Street." Powell said tossing his container in the trash.

"I want to eat this every day." Chloe sighed when she finally finished hers and tossed it in the trash can. "That was very good."

"Ok, you got your dessert, so come on, the day that everything changed." McClane said, slowly and obviously taking her time with her tiramisu.

"Right, well it's going to get a little delicate towards the end so if you're virgin ears can't handle a little NC-17, you might want to leave now."

"I'm good." McClane smiled.

"I'd tried changing some things, I'd tried changing nothing, neither of those tactics worked, so I decided to try a new one, I tried changing everything. It didn't work at first, slowly the day kept evolving but Lex was still dying and I knew he was the key, so I just kept at it, eventually I had almost everything down to a science.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note: **Ok, everyone got very excited about the NC-17 and there is a tiny amount but it's not full blown or anything so don't be disappointed.

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**October 16, 2008 (Day 83)**

"I bought you a very nice, very expensive mattress." Oliver said towering over Chloe as she opened her eyes.

Chloe stood up and stretched not really paying attention to the speech he was giving since she already had it memorized. She just let Oliver talk as she grabbed some fresh clothes and got dressed, she had a full day ahead of her. Oliver went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee but as soon as he turned the thing on the coffee pot exploded. "Son of a bitch!" Oliver screamed and jumped back as the lights in the apartment flicked then went out.

Chloe ran in from the living room confused. "What happened?"

"The coffee pot." He waved his hands around. "Exploded." He pointed to the smoking plug still in the outlet.

"You shorted the breaker. I told you a hundred times to get the electrician in." Chloe moved to the side of the stove and picked up a towel.

"You told me once." Oliver looked at her strange. "Yesterday."

"Right." She shook her head and batted out the flames. She grabbed a pot holder and put it on before pulling out the plug.

Suddenly AC came stumbling out of the bedroom. "What's with all the noise?" His eyes were barely open and he bumped into the hall table.

"Excuse me just a second." Chloe grabbed a knife and walked past him into the hallway, Chloe reached out and caught the vase on the corner right as it tipped and headed to the ground.

"Nice reflexes." Oliver commented as AC seemed to wake up more.

"Oh, sorry, is there coffee?" AC rubbed his eyes.

"Not anymore." Chloe set the vase back on the table and picked up the knife. She sliced a large rectangle in the wallpaper and pulled it away revealing the breaker box. She flipped the main switch and the lights came back on. They stared at her confused and entranced as she picked up her bag. "I'll go pick up some. I needed to check on something anyway."

"Wake me when you're back with coffee." AC said before walking back to his room.

Oliver watched Chloe walk out then grabbed his jacket and went out the back way. Something was going on, something strange. He caught up with her when she exited the building. She stopping at a parking meter in front of the neighboring brownstone and pulled coins out of her pocket. She was putting them in the meter just as the meter reader got there. "Wait, I'm coming, I'm coming." A woman flew down the steps of the brownstone across from the car. She was wearing a nightgown under a large jacket and she was pulling on a pair of unlaced work boots that were obviously not hers. "I'm here." She stopped in front of the meter and the Meter Maid looked at her.

"The lady took care of it." The Meter Maid nodded at Chloe who had just continued walking down the street without a further glance.

"Really?" The woman seemed to deflate. "That was nice….one more ticket and I would have gotten a tow and my boyfriend has an important day today."

"That's nice." The Meter Maid said in a way that showed he obviously didn't think was nice.

Oliver hurried his pace to keep up with Chloe. She reached out and grabbed at something and as Oliver got closer he noticed that it was a bike messenger. She pulled on his sleeve until he stopped, right at the curb as a BMW came screaming around the corner. "Whoa, that could have hit me." The biker guy said and Chloe just nodded as she kept walking.

What the hell was going on, it was like Chloe knew what was going to happen before it actually happened. She checked her watch again and then crossed the street and slipped into a parking garage. Oliver squinted but followed her. It was a little trickier following her in the parking garage but he managed it pretty well, sticking to the shadows, his Green Arrow training really coming in handy. He hid behind a pillar as she walked up to a row of cars and he stared, those were Lex's cars, he could tell by the Lex1, Lex2, and Lex3 license plates. "What are you doing?" He whispered to himself.

He soon found out when she pulled something from her bag and proceeded to jimmy the hood on the Porsche open, reached in for a second and then emerged holding something in her hand that looked suspiciously like a distributor cap. She slipped it in her bag closed the hood and moved onto the next car where she did the same thing. Then she paused and stood up. "Ok, you can come out now." She turned around and stared straight at the pillar that he was hiding behind. "No seriously I know you're following me. This one's a little tricky and I could use the help." She tapped her foot impatiently and Oliver moved out into the light. "Come on then." She waved him over. She grabbed his hand and placed it under the hood. "You feel that?" He nodded. "That's the hood lever, I'm going to unlock it and I need you to catch it when it releases and squeeze up. Can you do that?"

"Yeah." Oliver nodded as Chloe crouched and applied the screwdriver to something. Suddenly the latch fell into his hand, he caught it and squeezed. The latch clicked and the hood popped open.

"Thanks." She smiled as she put the screwdriver away, freed the distributor cap and slid it in her bag before lowering the hood and walking away.

"Where did you learn to do that?" He asked as he caught up.

"If you want to get technical? Today, if you want to be more technical about twenty days ago."

"So which is it?" Oliver asked confused. "Twenty days ago or today?"

"Both." She looked over her shoulder at him and then grabbed his jacket and pulled him to the side, just as a kid on a skateboard almost ran him over.

"Thanks." He glared at the kid.

"Don't worry, that little bastard knocked me down five times before I learned to get out of his way." Chloe smiled.

"Ok, what's going on?" Oliver asked. "Did you develop some sort of psychic powers or something?"

"Not exactly." She turned into a door front and Oliver was surprised to find himself in a small appliance shop. "I need a new coffee pot don't I?" She answered his unanswered question.

"Right." He looked at her confused. "You knew I was going to blow up that outlet didn't you?"

"I did." Chloe winced. "I just, didn't catch you in time." She picked up a box with a simple coffee maker on it and paid with exact change then dragged Oliver back toward the Isis Foundation, stopping at a coffee cart on the way and grabbing a few cups of fresh coffee. She stopped her constant movement and took the time to enjoy her first sip of the fresh brew only to gasp and look at her watch. "Crap, we gotta go." She hurried toward the building and waited impatiently in the elevator only to step out of the room into chaos. "Morning." Bart smiled sheepishly holding a pile of towels in his hand before running off to the bathroom.

"What…" Oliver walked down the hall and froze. The bathroom and the hallway were covered in water and it was still coming out of the toilet. "That's gross."

"Everyday." Chloe deposited her stuff on the counter and smiled. "Sorry, I just can't seem to stop that one. At least by now I know how to fix it." She walked into the bathroom and they all watched enthralled as she reached behind the toilet and turned the water off. "Call a plumber." She said to Oliver taking more towels out of the cabinet and tossing them to Bart and AC.

"How did you know how to do that?" Bart asked her as they mopped up the rest of the water.

"And the vase earlier." AC asked. "And the breaker box?"

"Yeah" Oliver shook his head. "You want to tell me what's going on?"

"How about breakfast?" Chloe smiled and walked off to the kitchen without answering a single question. Oliver and the guys followed her and he watched confused as she moved through the cabinets and fixed breakfast. When the table was set and everyone was eating Chloe started her explanation. "Have you seen the movie Groundhogs day?"

"Yeah." Oliver said slowly.

"Think that without Bill Murray or the Groundhog." Chloe told them.

"Yeah." Bart shook his head. "I don't know what that means."

"I'm reliving the same day." Chloe took a bite of eggs.

"You're what now?" AC asked.

"I'm reliving the same day, over and over again."

"Today?" Oliver asked.

"Yes today." Chloe nodded.

"So you're reliving the day over?" Victor asked.

"How many times?" Oliver asked.

"A bunch." Chloe said evasively.

"How much is a bunch?" Bart asked.

"You said that kid knocked you down five times." Oliver pointed out to her.

"A whole bunch." Chloe offered getting.

"How many?" Oliver asked concerned now.

"Today makes 83." Chloe said as she leaned her chair back and reached behind her to grab a towel, just as Bart spit his juice all over the table. She passed him the towel and he looked at her for a second before wiping the juice up.

"You've lived this exact day 83 times?" Oliver asked.

"Not exactly, some things change, after a while." She took the towel back from Bart.

"But you know what's going to happen?" Victor asked her.

"Everything." Chloe nodded.

"You know everything that's going to happen?" Bart scoffed.

"Yes." Chloe told him.

"You can't know everything that's going to happen."

"I do." She sighed. It was the same every time she tried to tell them. They never believed her at first, not until she proved it.

"Really?" He asked jumping out of his chair and running out of the room. Chloe sighed and got up walking to the sink and pulling a vase out of the cabinet then filling it up with water. She walked back over to the table and set it down in the middle. A second later Bart walked in the room and presented her with a bouquet of flowers. "Fresh from the…"

"Rainforest." Chloe took them and set them in the vase.

"How did you…" Bart frowned when he realized that she'd had the vase all ready for him. "Know."

"Told you." Chloe smiled.

"This is crazy." AC grabbed a biscuit and leaned back in his seat. "That's Bart's go to move. Every time he wants to impress someone or show off, he gets some flowers fresh from the rain forest, everyone knows that." Chloe walked over and held out a hand, catching AC's chair as it slipped out from underneath him. Then she turned slightly with her arm outstretched and caught the biscuit that had flown in the air when he started to fall. She set the biscuit on the table and pushed him back up right. "Thanks." He smiled sheepishly.

"So you're really living this day over?" Victor smiled.

"I really am." Chloe nodded. "And I'm late."

"For what?" Oliver got up and followed her to the kitchen. "Got some more meters to feed?"

"Ok, she kept getting towed and then her boyfriend was late for work and then they got evicted from the apartment and the boyfriend broke up with her." Chloe explained and Oliver raised an eyebrow. "It took me forever, two hundred dollars in cab fare, seven thousand dollars in back rent, and a five hour conversation with her boyfriend before I realized all I had to do was stick a few coins in her parking meter."

"Ok." He nodded. "What about the biker?"

"He never pays attention." Chloe shrugged.

"And the distributor caps?" Oliver smiled.

"These?" She pulled them out of her bag. She smiled. "Just making sure Lex is safe."

"By disabling his cars?" Oliver asked confused. "Wait, why wouldn't he be safe?"

"Let's just say, that exploding coffee pots and overflowing toilets have been the least of my worries." She checked her watch. "Oh, I've got to stop Lois from getting arrested." She grabbed a cup of coffee and gulped it down. "See you later."

"Hold on." Oliver grabbed his jacket. "I'm going to come with you."

Chloe froze and turned around. "You're going to do what now?" She asked.

"Come with you." He said and then stopped. "This hasn't happened before has it?"

"No." She shook her head. "Not before."

"Well." Oliver smiled. "Maybe that's a good thing."

"It couldn't possibly hurt." Chloe shrugged.

"So what's the plan?" Oliver followed Chloe down the street. "We find Lois, and stop her?"

"That doesn't work." Chloe shook her head. "Lois is going to do what Lois is going to do, I just have to stop her from getting caught."

"And how do we do that?" Oliver asked.

Chloe smiled up at him sheepishly. "I generally slip some Ex-Lax in the guard's coffee."

Oliver stared at her for a second before shrugging and following her. When they got to LuthorCorp, Oliver watched as Chloe walked up to the guard and leaned over the counter, laughing loudly at his jokes, touching his arm lightly and flirting wildly as she deftly dropped the tablets in his coffee. "Well thanks for all the help Jason." Chloe winked at him. "I'll be sure to come back and visit." She turned and walked away.

"That's it?" Oliver said.

"That's hardly it." Chloe laughed. "I mean now Lois won't get caught and I won't have to bail her out of jail, but there's so much more to do."

Oliver followed Chloe the rest of the day as she called in bomb threats to Lex's office, locked a waiter in a freezer, reported a gas leak at his house in Smallville, called in anonymous tips on four different muggings and stopped by the pet store. Chloe bought everything one would need if just getting a new puppy. A leash, collar, food, bowls, chew toy and treats. "I know it seems strange but bear with me." Chloe handed Oliver the bag and they walked three blocks over where a woman had a small pen set up in her front yard full of golden retriever puppies. Chloe picked out the shaky one in the corner and attached the collar and leash before heading back down the street.

"So everything else we've done this morning was to keep Lex from dying right? How does getting a puppy do that?" Oliver asked.

"It's complicated." Chloe tried for a while to teach the dog to walk on the leash but eventually gave up and picked the dog up, carrying him. "There's the two little kids on Broad Street that have been begging their mom for a puppy forever."

"That's sweet." Oliver said. "But it still doesn't make any sense."

"It's simple actually. I give them the puppy anonymously, they convince their mom to let them keep it, and later today, while their walking their new puppy to the park, it's going to pee on Lex's leg while he talks on the phone."

"What does that do?" Oliver asked.

"Well it forces Lex to go inside and change and he's late for drinks and so he doesn't have time to stop at for a cigar at this cigar shop which happens to get held up." Chloe smiled.

"Couldn't you just stop the store from getting held up?" Oliver asked.

"I've tried that." Chloe shrugged. "I've realized that the direct approach doesn't really work here, you have to ease things apart. If the direct approach worked don't you think I'd just knock him over the head, stick him in a room and wait the day out?" Chloe laughed.

"You've tried that?" Oliver stared at her for a second then his eyes got huge.

"Once." Chloe sighed. "He ended up breaking his neck trying to escape. That's when I realized you have to manipulate events, slowly, cause and effect sometimes three or four times removed. Giving someone a puppy could mean the difference between a hundred different possible outcomes."

"The Butterfly Effect." Oliver nodded.

"Exactly." Chloe smiled walking up to the porch and tying the dogs leash to the railing. She grabbed the bag from Oliver and set it down before ringing to door bell and running. She pulled Oliver into a set of bushes as two kids opened the door and squealed in delight. "Plus, this way I stop Lex from getting shot and they get a puppy."

"You're just a softy." Oliver smiled at her as she grabbed his arm and pulled him back to the street toward the Isis Foundation. "What now?"

"Now, we wait." Chloe said. "Every day, it's something different, I just have to think for a minute, one single action causes so many possible different outcomes, I need to figure out which one it will be."

"How do you do that?" Oliver asked.

"I watch and wait."

Chloe settled herself in front of the monitors at the Isis Foundation and turned them all on, some showed news stations, some internet news sites, some even showed weather forecasts. Most of it was speeding by so fast that Oliver couldn't even make heads or tails of it but Chloe's eyes flickered back and forth and he knew that she wasn't missing a single thing. He sat down and watched in awe, he'd seen her heal people before but this was the first time he'd seen her use this power, it was amazing and frightening. Chloe chuckled briefly.

"What?" Oliver looked around confused.

"Nothing, just something that Jon Stewart said." She shook her head and kept her eyes trained on the monitors. "There." Chloe hit a key and frowned as all of the screens displayed the same information.

"What is that?" Oliver asked.

"Flight plans for the mid-west, passenger manifests." Chloe said. "There's something here." She kept reading and then paused. "There, flight 714 from Berlin, delayed."

"So." Oliver said confused.

Chloe typed a few things. "Yes." She smiled. "I knew I recognized that name." She pointed to Ryan Peterson and turned around. "He's an associate of Lex's." She jumped down and grabbed her jacket. "We've got to get to the airport."

"What why?" Oliver asked.

"If I did what I was supposed to do, which I did, then Lex is still alive for now, every day Peterson has flown in from Germany but Lex was never alive to meet him at the airport."

"So since you've kept him alive…" Oliver started to follow her line of thinking. "He'll probably go to the airport."

"And if he's going to the airport, we've got to go to the airport." Chloe nodded. "Because that's where he'll die."

Oliver just shrugged and followed Chloe's lead, she hadn't steered him wrong all day.

Oliver sat outside the airport, freezing his ass off, as Chloe walked up with coffee. "Are we going to sit out here all night?" Oliver took a warming sip.

"Not all night." Chloe nodded to a limo. "There he is, come on." Chloe's eyes roamed around the parking lot as they made their way to the airport entrance, scooping out any possible danger. Lex got out of the car on his cell phone.

"I've had the worst day today, trust me you don't want to make it any worse. I want the results on my desk first thing in the morning and I want a preliminary project test set for tomorrow, do I make myself clear?" Lex hung up the phone. Chloe walked toward the entrance to the airport but Lex turned and walked around the side.

"Where is he going?" She asked confused, dragging Oliver in the new direction.

"Around back." Oliver said as they followed Lex around the airport terminal to a side door where a man walked out.

"Ryan Peterson." Chloe whispered as they hid behind a luggage cart. "But what are they doing out here?"

"Something they obviously don't want anyone to see." Chloe watched.

"You think he's the guy? You think he's gonna kill Lex?" Oliver asked.

"No." Chloe shook her head. "That doesn't make any sense, there are camera's everywhere and even if there weren't I made the connection, so someone else would too. No, I don't think it's him."

"What then?" Oliver looked around confused.

Chloe look up and frowned. She could see something moving around up on the roof. She studied the alleyway and saw trucks that weren't from the airline. "Roofers." Chloe whispered reading the side of the truck. She looked up on the roof again and heard it. "Oh come on." Chloe pushed herself up and started running toward Lex. "Move." She shouted at Lex.

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Lex was having probably the worst day of his life. It all started in the morning when all three of his cars refused to start, it got worse at lunch when his regular waiter failed to show up and he got some new kid who didn't know the difference between a glass of water and salad plate. Then he had to evacuate his office for two hours because of a false bomb threat, a dog peed on him while he was on his way to diner and now Ryan Peterson was making it worse.

He'd been calling Lex every day for the past three months claiming that he had come across something big, something right up Lex's alley and Lex finally agreed to meet him to discuss it. Lex assumed it would be about another Meteor Freak, someone with a power that he hadn't seen yet but it was just about some crappy investment opportunity in some tech startup. He was rubbing his temples trying to stave off the headache that had been threatening him all day. He was trying to figure out the best way to tell Ryan that there was no way in hell he was spending a dime of his money or LuthorCorps money on this stupid scheme when he heard someone screaming his name.

He turned around startled to see Chloe Sullivan running full tilt toward him, screaming something. That in itself would have been surprising enough had he not seen Oliver Queen three paces behind her. "What the hell?" Lex watched in interest as Chloe waved her hands wildly in the air and pointed to the roof of the building. Lex turned to look up at the roof when a commotion started.

"Keep hold of it, keep hold of it." A voice screamed and Lex squinted as a large bucket fell off the edge of the roof and spun around as it tumbled to the ground straight for him.

"Is that…" Lex never got to finish the sentence as the bucket slammed into his head and then there was blackness.

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Oliver handed Chloe a cup of coffee and she sighed before sipping it. "How are you doing?"

"Death by tar bucket." Chloe scoffed. "Who would have thought it?"

"You." Oliver said. "You almost had it figured out."

"Not fast enough." She shook her head. "Well there's always tomorrow, which is today."

"For the 84th time?" Oliver asked.

"For the 84th time." Chloe nodded.

"You know, I watched you all day, stopping things before they even happened, but I still can't believe it. Does anything change day to day?" Oliver asked.

"Some things. Like the things I have no control over." Chloe explained. "Those are the most maddening because there's nothing I can do to change them."

"Like what?" Oliver sat down.

"The news stories are the same, the songs on the radio, every radio station plays exactly the same songs in exactly the same order every single day, the television shows are the same, the game shows have the same questions with the same answers, the sporting events have the same plays, the same scores, the same everything every single day." Chloe explained. "And it's not just that." She pointed out. "It's you guys too. Bart says the same joke over and over, every single day. AC always bumps into that table and knocks that vase over. Victor fixes himself the same lunch every day. I know it seems small but it's frustrating."

"And me?" Oliver asked. "What do I do that never changes?"

"You?" Chloe looked at him for a minute. "You show up here every morning. When I stand up your in the same spot saying the same thing over and over again."

"Really?" Oliver asked.

Chloe cleared her throat and recited Oliver's daily speech. "I bought you a very nice, very expensive mattress. I tried it out myself. Physically went in the store and laid on the mattress to make sure it was comfortable." Chloe smiled at him.

"Is that it?" Oliver asked.

"Well, you sort of, well everyday you sort of flirt." Chloe admitted.

"I flirt?" Oliver said skeptically. "Is that a bad thing?" He sounded a little hurt.

"Not bad, just monotonous." Chloe shrugged but at the look on Oliver's face she relented. "Wait, that didn't come out right. It's just that I lived this day 83 times, so that's 83 days of you flirting with me. But you've only lived this day once, so for you it's just been the one day. So I've had to sit through 83 days of flirting that I can't do anything about because for you it's only been one day."

"Do something?" Oliver raised his eyebrows.

They both smiled awkwardly at each other in silence and then Chloe set her coffee cup down. "Oh like I have anything to loose." Chloe lunged forward and kissed Oliver. He seemed surprised at first, but it didn't take long to respond when Chloe's hands yanked his shirt from his pants and attacked his belt buckle.

"Slow down." Oliver laughed against her neck as his hands worked on her bra.

Chloe turned her head and looked at the clock. 11:47. "No time." She shook her head pulling his belt from his pants and grabbing for his shirt buttons.

Oliver grabbed her hips and lifted, her feet came off the ground and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He walked her the short distance to the bedroom and laid her down. She was immediately at his waist band again. "What's gotten into you?" He smiled pulling her shirt over her head as she divested him of his pants.

"I figured, what the hell." Chloe pulled him down and kissed him again. "I haven't done this before, and you probably won't even remember it tomorrow."

"Wait Chloe." Oliver looked down at her and she turned her head to the clock on the nightstand. 11:56.

"Never mind waiting." She shook her head as his hands slowly lowered her jeans. She moved to help him and soon they were both naked and Oliver was moving inside her and she turned her head again, watching the clock turn 11:59.

"Faster." She clutched at his shoulder blades and pulled him tighter. "Faster." She pulled her hips up, slamming into him.

"Damn Chloe." Oliver hissed and he leaned down to kiss her only to find that she was looking at the clock.

"Crap, I'm not even gonna get to finish." She said as she turned to Oliver and kissed him one last time as the clock changed from 11:59 to 12:00.

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October 16, 2008 (Day 84)

Chloe didn't want to open her eyes. She knew where she was and she knew where she'd just been. She'd been with Oliver, she still couldn't believe she'd done that, attacked him like that, but the truth is, he'd gone right along with her. She brought her hands up to her lips and touched them softly, remember the feel Oliver's on hers, the feel of his body against her. The problem was she wasn't going to be able to think of anything else all day long and Oliver, well he'd be none the wiser. It was definitely going to be a long day. She turned her head to the side, wondering why he hadn't come out of the kitchen yet and opened her eyes. He wasn't standing where he was supposed to be standing, where he'd been standing for the past 83 days.

"It's Thursday." She turned her head and saw Oliver sitting on the coffee table staring at her.

"Of course it's Thursday." Chloe said blinking rapidly trying to catch up to this new development.

He passed her a newspaper and she looked at the date, yep, Thursday again. "It's Thursday again." He said pointedly.

"Again?" Chloe sat up straighter. "What…what…what…do you mean?" She scratched her head. "What do you mean again?"

"I mean I've lived this day before, yesterday." He said pointedly. Chloe opened her mouth and froze.

"You mean like déjà vu?" Chloe asked.

"No I mean yesterday was Thursday and now today is Thursday and stop acting like this is such a surprise, you've done this 83 times before." He pointed out.

"Oh, so you remember that." Chloe said.

"I remember all of it." Oliver stood up and started pacing. She stayed in her seat and watched him. He stopped and turned to her. "I woke up in my bed in the Clock Tower but I remember everything, and trust me, you'll get to finish."

Chloe felt her cheeks turn extremely red and she looked away. "About that…"

"We'll talk about that, we'll definitely talk about that, but right now I'm sort of having a freak out because I'm living the same day over." He pointed out to her.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Chloe stood up and stretched. "Reliving the day, been there done that, I can't have this conversation with you until I've had coffee." Chloe walked in the kitchen and rummaged around as she set the coffee up. Oliver kept up his pacing in the living room.

"Wait, Chloe, no coffee!" He ran into the kitchen just as she turned the machine on, the outlet exploded, and the lights flickered then went out.

"The coffee pot exploded." She said astonished

"Yeah, just like yesterday." Oliver reminded her.

"I can't believe I forgot about that." She grabbed the pot holder and pulled the plug out.

"What was that explosion?" AC called from the hallway.

Chloe and Oliver looked at each other. "Vase." They said running to the living room just as AC bumped into the table and the vase went sailing to the ground. Oliver leaned forward and caught it right before it hit the floor.

"Whoa." AC said. "Nice catch. Is there any coffee?"

"No." Chloe said as Oliver put the vase back on the table and she grabbed a knife, slicing the wallpaper and reveling the breaker box.

AC watched confused about the whole thing and then just shrugged. "Wake me when there's coffee." He turned around and walked back to the bedroom.

The vase and the blackout seemed to knock Chloe back to her senses. "Ok, I've got to…there are things that I need to do, we'll talk about this…later." Chloe shook her head as she moved to change her clothes.

"You've got to put quarters in a meter and steal Lex's distributor caps?" Oliver asked his eyebrows raised.

"It's what I do Oliver." Chloe pulled on her shoes.

"It's what you did before." Oliver sat down and looked at her. "But it's different now, I'm here too, I remember."

"Yes, and I'm going to figure out how that happened, but until then, I'm going to do what I always do." Chloe said getting up and walking to the door. "You coming or what?"

Oliver smiled and grabbed his coat walking to the door.

**

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October 16, 2008 (Day 147)

"So you and Oliver slept together and suddenly he's living the day over too?" Powell asked.

"We're still not sure how it happened, how he managed to come over with me." Chloe shrugged.

"I think I can figure out how he managed to come." McClane said under her breath.

Chloe turned and glared at her. "Yes well." She coughed and shrugged. "It happened and that's when everything changed, and nothing changed. The days stayed the same, everything still happened the same way as it did before, only now Oliver remember too. The neighbor still forgot to feed the meter, the messenger still refused to pay attention to the street, Lois still broke into Luthor Corp and Lex still died."

"But that doesn't make any sense. If Oliver remembered the days repeating than something somewhere changed." Powell pointed out.

"Trust me I've scoured every international news bulletin, every report, every local news story in the world, nothing changed." Chloe shrugged. "Not that I could find."

"So what did you do?" Powell asked.

"What I always did, everything I could think of to keep Lex Luther alive." Chloe shrugged.


	6. Chapter 6

**October 16, 2008 (Day 105)**

Chloe nodded over at Oliver and smiled slightly. "Is there a reason why we had to eat here?" Bart asked as Oliver leaned back in his chair and dropped a fork on the ground.

"I hear the soup is amazing." Chloe smiled as Oliver sat back up straight and nodded at Chloe.

"Yeah, ok." Bart said confused looking between Chloe and Oliver. "You guys have been weird all morning." Bart leaned forward. "Something's going on here and it's not about the soup." Bart said.

"Just eat your soup." Chloe ignored him and looked up the street. She watched a woman climb out of a car and nodded at Oliver that it was go time.

"We haven't ordered yet." AC told her looking at them confused. "As much as this pains me to say, Bart's right, something funny is going on here."

Chloe and Oliver weren't paying attention though. They were watching a woman walk towards them, both of them acting like they weren't watching her but they all knew that look, they'd all perfected that look. "Seriously." Victor said confused and Chloe held up her finger to silence him as the woman passed their table. Her foot landed wrong and suddenly she was falling to the ground. Someone from another table rushed over to help her and Oliver got up too, walking to her. He reached down and grabbed the bag she'd dropped and shoved all her things back in it.

"Are you ok?" Someone asked the woman.

"Yeah, I just lost my footing. I think I tripped on something." She bent down and picked something up. "I tripped on a fork." She said startled and shook her head.

"Here." Oliver smiled and passed her the bag. She nodded her thanks and Oliver sat back down.

When she was out of earshot Chloe smiled. "Did you get it?"

"He shoots he scores." Oliver pulled something out of his pocket and slid it across the table.

"Excellent." Chloe pulled her computer out of her bag along with a handful of wires.

Victor snatched up the object as Chloe set up her computer. "You stole her cell phone?" Victor looked between Chloe and Oliver even more confused. "Why on earth would you steal a random woman's cell phone?"

"She wasn't a random woman." Oliver took a sip of his water. "That was Lex's assistant."

"Ok." Victor still looked confused as Chloe plucked the phone from him and plugged it into her computer. "No, I'm still not following."

"I needed his schedule." Chloe typed rapidly, pulling up screen after screen. She looked up at Oliver. "I can't believe all this time and I never thought of this."

"Well that's what you keep me around for." Oliver smiled at her.

"Is that why I keep you around?" Chloe looked up at him. "I thought it was so I could have something pretty to look at while I did all the hard work."

"Oh, that's so sweet, you think I'm pretty?" Oliver tilted his head.

"Dude, do they even know we're here?" Bart asked AC who shrugged.

"I don't know." AC sighed leaning back in his seat and tossing his menu on the table. "But the way they've been talking about the soup, I'm really craving some now, where's the waitress?"

"Wait a minute, hold on, explain to me why you need Lex's schedule." Victor asked.

"So we know where he's supposed to be." Chloe said not taking her eyes off the screen.

"And we need to know that why?" Victor was still confused.

"So we can try and keep him alive." Oliver answered grabbing a breadstick from the bowl in front of him.

"Hold it." Bart seemed to focus on the conversation again. "Since when did we become Lex's bodyguards?"

"105 days ago." Chloe and Oliver answered together, paused and looked at each other smiling slightly. "Just have some lunch and we'll explain everything when it's Friday."

Bart looked over at AC confused and made a motion with his hands to indicate that maybe Chloe had been drinking. "Dude she's been saying that all day."

"Got it." Chloe closed the computer. "Let's go."

Victor turned to Chloe confused as she packed up her computer and stood up from the table. "Go? Go where? We haven't had lunch yet."

"Seriously, I need some soup." AC was looking at the menu.

"You guys stay, eat." Oliver got out his wallet and tossed some money on the table without looking. "Get us something to go."

"Oh yeah." Chloe smiled. "I hear the Vichyssoise is amazing."

"The what?" Bart looked at her as if she was crazy.

"It's a soup, order me a bowl will you?" Chloe pulled the bag over her shoulder and she and Oliver walked away.

AC looked through the menu and then he frowned. "It's served cold."

"What is?" Bart asked.

"Vichyssoise. It's a cold soup." He made a face. "Who eats cold soup? Who would make a cold soup?"

"I'll catch up with you guys later." Victor ignored them, his eyes still on Chloe and Oliver who were disappearing down the street. "Get me some French Onion would you?"

"Why do people keep leaving before lunch is even ordered?" Bart leaned back in his seat.

AC reached across the table and picked up the money Oliver left. "How much do you think soup costs?" He asked.

"Like five bucks?" Bart shrugged.

"What do you say we get the other guys soup, bring it back to the Foundation and go get us some real food." AC held up the money and Bart smiled. Oliver might have thought he was tossing down twenties but they were actually hundreds, six of them.

"I thought you were like madly craving soup." Bart asked.

AC waved the hundreds in the air and smiled. "Why have soup when you can have steak?"

****************

Victor knew how to follow people, he was taught by the best and he'd never once been spotted, not in five years of doing this. The problem is the guy who taught him was now the guy he was following, and that guy was also the one who taught him how to spot and lose a tail so right away Victor figured this would be one of the harder jobs he'd ever had.

He wasn't wrong. The first stop Oliver made was a restaurant, he walked in the front, through the dinning room, shoved a waiter in the freezer and then walked out the back door. He stopped then, checked his watch, and turned left hurrying down the street. Victor followed him for three more random errands. A flower shop where he picked up two dozen roses, a street vendor where he picked up a Shark's baseball cap, a team Oliver despised, then a real estate office where Oliver went inside, flirted with the receptionist a bit, gave her the flowers and then left, tossing the baseball cap in the trash can on his way across the street.

Victor knew the last one wasn't a social call. After years of working alongside Oliver he knew that his flower of choice for women were Calla Lilllies, not roses, also the receptionist was about sixty five years old. The next stop was a parking garage, where Oliver walked straight to a bright green Volkswagen Beetle, pulled out a key and opened the door. He leaned in for a minute and then came back out slipping the keys and something else into his pocket before walking away.

They walked practically across town until they got the Met U campus. Oliver stopped in front of a building and looked up. Victor ducked into the doorway down the street and watched. Oliver moved to the sidewalk and paced in front of the stairwell for the better part of a minute before smiling and taking off down the street and around the corner. Victor cursed and took off after him only to turn the corner and find out he was gone. He was cursing himself when he heard a voice behind him. "Hey, I need your help." Oliver said.

Victor jumped in surprise and then turned around. "Where did you come from?" He asked confused.

"I ran around the block." Oliver smiled. "Come on." He crossed the street and headed back to the building he'd been in front of earlier.

"You knew I was following you?" Victor asked and Oliver nodded. "For how long?"

"Since the restaurant." Oliver told him. "I saw your reflection in the freezer door."

"And you just let me follow you?" Victor shook his head.

"Yeah well." Oliver shrugged. "Look I need you to go in there and pull the fire alarm."

"You need me to what?" Victor looked at him like he was crazy.

"Go in there and pull the fire alarm." Oliver repeated.

"That's a girl's dormitory." Victor said.

Oliver just nodded. "Come on, it's really not that hard."

"Then why don't you do it?" Victor asked him.

"Because, every time I try someone spots me and recognizes me and then there's a whole thing with a crowd and last time somehow a reporter showed up. It was horrible." Oliver shook his head remembering.

"So then you've done this before?" Victor asked. "Do you do this often?"

"No, not before today." Oliver shook his head. "Look, you gotta do it now cause in two minutes there's gonna be a whole gaggle of girls coming through here. Just trust me ok?" Victor nodded and walked up the stairs.

"If I do this, then you'll explain?" Victor grabbed the door and pulled, it was locked. Oliver pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to Victor. It was an ID card for the dormitory. "Where did you…I don't want to know." He swiped the card and the door unlocked. "A gaggle?" He asked confused.

"What else can you call a large group of girls?" Oliver shrugged.

"Gaggle works I guess." Victor nodded.

"We're on a time crunch here." Oliver reminded him. Victor walked into the building. Oliver paced back and forth until he heard the shrill tone of the fire alarm, followed by the even shriller tone of two hundred college girls screaming in panic.

The door flew open and Victor jumped down the steps. "Go, go, go they're right behind me." He ran down the street and Oliver followed suit. "Why is it that the fantasy of two hundred screaming girls chasing after you is so much hotter than the reality?"

Oliver laughed. They rounded the corner and stopped to catch their breath. "Ok, good, that's done."

"Where did you get the ID card from?" Victor turned it over and looked at it.

"Out of the car from the parking garage." Oliver said.

"How did you get into the car?" Victor asked.

"Walk with me." Oliver nodded down the street and they started walking. "I got the car keys from the receptionist at the real estate office." He said as if that was obvious. Victor looked at him as if he was crazy. "Ok, follow the trail from the beginning." Oliver said. "I got the flowers for the receptionist."

"And the Shark's Hat?" Victor asked.

"She likes the Shark's." Oliver shrugged. "It started up a conversation. Then I gave her the flowers and told her a story about this mysterious man who bought them for her. That distracted her enough so I could slip the keys out of her purse."

"Ok." Victor said trying to follow. "Why was she parked so far away?"

"That was her daughter's car, I took her spare key." Oliver said. "So that I could get the ID card."

"So we could pull the fire alarm in a girls dorm?" Victor asked.

"Now you're getting it." Oliver nodded.

"No, not at all." Victor shook his head. "Why did we pull the fire alarm?"

"No idea." Oliver shrugged turning into the parking garage from before. He walked over to the car, put the ID card back in and dropped the keys in the seat before locking it and closing the door. Victor looked at him even more confused. "Chloe told me to." Oliver said as if that made perfect sense. "It has something to do with the fire department blocking off Seventh Avenue which makes a delivery guy late and there's more but I wasn't paying attention."

"You're kidding me right?" Victor shook his head.

"Not in the least." Oliver pulled out his phone and dialed a number. "Hey, the fire alarm has been pulled and Victor followed me again." Oliver listened for a minute. "Yeah I can make it downtown in thirty minutes." He looked at Victor. "Write this down." Victor held up his hands to indicate that he didn't carry pens and pads around with him. "Remember it then." Victor nodded. "Corner of Fourth and Holland, in front of the fountain, 3:08 p.m. exactly, cab number 328." Oliver told him and Victor repeated it over and over in his head. "Yes, I'm sure it all will make sense later." Oliver smiled. "Yeah call me when you get done in Smallville."

"Why is Chloe in Smallville?" Victor asked as Oliver hailed a cab.

"She's…" Oliver looked over at Victor, debating on how much to tell him. "She's breaking Lex's septic tank."

"I'm not even going to ask." He shook his head. "What did you mean when you said that I followed you again?"

"You've followed me a few times." Oliver told him.

"No I haven't." Victor shook his head.

"Well, that parts harder to explain…just forget about it."

"No you know I'm not going to forget about it actually. You and Chloe have been acting strange all day and then there's this whole weird thing with the cell phone, the fire alarm, the septic tank and, ok you know what actually I think I am going to just forget about it after all."

"It's better that way." Oliver smiled as they drove toward downtown. They got out at Fourth and Holland and looked around. "Time?"

"2:42." Victor said.

"We've got 27 minutes." Oliver sighed. "So are you hungry?"

"I could eat." Victor nodded.

Five minutes later they were sitting on the steps of the fountain eating hot dogs from a street vendor waiting for a cab. "So an old man is going to get out of cab 328 at exactly 3:08 and we're supposed to grab the cab before anyone else can take it?"

"That's the plan." Oliver wiped his mouth.

"Right, and what does that do?" Victor asked and Oliver shrugged. "You have no idea?"

"Nope." Oliver smiled.

"And where are we taking this cab?" Victor asked.

"Isis Foundation I need to check some things for Chloe." Oliver said. "Hey how are you at disguising your voice and scrambling phone calls?"

"Pretty good." Victor said confused.

"Great, I need you to call in a bomb threat to Metropolis Airport later." Oliver tossed his napkin in the trash and stood up.

"You know what I'm just going to go along with that." Victor said. "I'm not going to ask any questions and I'm going to wake up tomorrow and realize this was all a dream, a crazy mixed up dream."

"Or you'll wake up tomorrow and it won't actually be tomorrow, it'll just be today again and you won't remember any of this stuff and we'll just have to do it all over." Oliver sighed. Victor looked at him confused and then shook his head. "Hey, cab 328." Oliver pointed. Victor tossed his napkin and followed Oliver across the street and into the cab.

****************

After checking on some things for Chloe down in the Foundation and calling in the bomb threat, Oliver and Victor were back at Chloe's apartment overseeing the electrician when Chloe walked, or more accurately squeaked through the door. She was drenched from head to toe in what, judging by the smell, was not just water. "How'd it go with the septic tank?" Oliver asked trying to hold back his laughter.

Chloe turned and glared at him. Oliver stood up and walked over to her reaching out then thinking differently. "Come on, it's not that bad." He turned to cover his nose.

"I swear to God Oliver, I swear to God if you ever want to get laid again you'll tell me that my bathroom is working because I'm covered in sewage, my car is covered in sewage, and I just heard on my way back from Smallville that Lex Luther was killed when he was crushed by a four hundred pound ice sculpture, so please, I really just want to take a hot bath and go to bed ok?"

"An ice sculpture?" Victor asked surprised.

"It fell off a delivery truck and slid down the street four blocks before jumping the curb and falling on Lex as he left his office." Chloe sighed.

"What are the odds?" The electrician scoffed, having listened to the entire conversation.

"Today?" Chloe tilted her head to the side. "Only 273 to 1." Chloe shrugged. "Bathroom?" Chloe asked Oliver hopefully.

"You'd better use mine." Victor looked at her sadly.

Chloe nodded and turned to the door. It opened and AC and Bart walked in laughing and carrying shopping bags. They stopped when they saw Chloe. "What happened to you?"

"Don't." Chloe held up her hand glaring at them. "Just don't. I want one hour ok? Just one hour to myself, can I have that please?"

"Yeah." Oliver nodded as she walked out of the room. He looked over at Bart and AC and noticed they had on different clothes than that morning. "Where the hell have you guys been all day?"

AC and Bart looked at each other and stuttered. "We, you know, we had some soup." AC tried to hide his bags behind his back.

"Then we just hung out a bit. Went to the park and fed the birds." Bart chimed in.

"I'm going to go check on Chloe." Oliver stared at them walking into her bedroom then emerged with his arms full of stuff. He glanced at AC and Bart again until he was out of the room. Victor leaned back in his seat and studied AC and Bart.

"You fed the birds?" Victor raised his eyebrows.

"Yep." AC nodded.

"So you really actually the money Oliver left for lunch and went on a shopping spree." Victor said.

"Yeah." Bart nodded.

Victor shook his head at them then smiled. "You guys are despicable."

"How would you like to be the first one to play our new X-cube?" Bart pulled a video game machine out of the bag. "Are we still despicable?"

"Oh yeah." Victor nodded. "But I get first player."

****************

Chloe finally managed to get all the sewage off of her and she was lying back in the tub with her eyes closed, enjoying a hot bath when she heard the bathroom door creek open. "Guys I asked for one hour is that really so hard to do, plus I'm in the tub, I know we have a pretty open door policy around here but not that open."

"I don't really see you rushing to cover anything up." Oliver said from the doorway.

Chloe opened one eye. "I'm too tired." She said as Oliver sat on the edge of the tub and handed her a cup of coffee. "You are amazing." Chloe took the cup from him and sipped it slowly.

"I try." He smiled.

"Hey." Chloe sighed. "Sorry about earlier, I'm just…you know?"

Oliver looked at her concerned. "Sewage bath aside, you sure you're ok?"

"I'm fine." Chloe smiled. "Just…tired."

"Ok, I'll let you soak." Oliver kissed her forehead. "I brought you some night clothes and your robe."

"Really amazing." Chloe assured him. She soaked for a while, not really the hour she wanted but enough to calm her down, prune her fingers and keep her from crawling into bed and crying from exhaustion. She pulled on the clothes Oliver brought her and the robe and walked across the hall, steeling herself for the cacophony of chaos that she was about to walk into. When she opened the door however it was silent, and dark. She frowned. "Hey, where is everyone?"

"I sent them away." Oliver called from the bedroom. "Come in here."

Chloe walked down the hall and stopped. "What is this?" She looked around the candle lit room. "You didn't have to do all this. You know I was just kidding about the whole never getting laid again thing."

"Come here." He patted the bed in front of him. "Lie down."

Chloe looked at him dubiously. "Ok, but I wasn't kidding about being tired." She smiled. "So you're going to have to do most of the work." Oliver gave her a look. "Ok you'll have to do all the work."

Oliver's lips twitched into a half smile. "Take off the robe." Chloe slid the robe to the floor and shivered when the cool air hit her skin. The camisole and shorts Oliver had left her didn't cover much. She climbed on the bed and laid down. "Roll over." Oliver reached into the drawer by the bed.

"Kinky." Chloe wiggled her eyebrows and Oliver rolled his eyes. She rolled over to lay on her stomach and heard him get off the bed and move around the room. Music came on, low jazz, and then she felt his weight shift the mattress. He straddled her back and she frowned for a second confused, he was still fully dressed. The scent of Lavender hit her first, then warm slightly damp hands started kneading at the muscles around her neck. Chloe groaned involuntarily and closed her eyes. "Oh God." She managed to say as Oliver's deft fingers worked her muscles.

"Is this ok?" He asked a strange tone of insecurity in her voice. The fact that Chloe had never heard him sound so unsure of himself made her rush to reassure him.

"I would live this day over five hundred times if I knew I was getting this at the end of it."

He laughed. "You've got knots the size of Belgium." He pressed a particularly large one beside her shoulder blade. "On top of knots the size of Iceland." He grunted working out the muscles as Chloe sunk deeper and deeper into a state of pure bliss. "You're working yourself too thin, wearing yourself out. You need to relax more, have a little fun."

"Sure." Chloe sighed. "Tomorrow I'll take a vacation. Just you, me, and that bottle of massage oil, we won't leave this room all day. Screw Lex and everyone else for that matter."

"That's not a bad idea." Oliver grunted. "The vacation part, well the whole thing, but really the vacation part."

"I was joking." Chloe chuckled.

"I'm not." Oliver said.

The serious tone in his voice made Chloe sit up and turn around. She caught him off guard and he tumbled to the other side of the bed. "You're not serious?" She asked him. "Oliver I've tried doing nothing, it doesn't work."

"I'm not saying you do nothing." He sat up. "Just hear me out. I realized something today when Victor was helping me out. We've got a whole team at our disposal and the two of us are running around like chickens with our heads cut off, we barely manage to get everything done and it still isn't working."

"But they don't understand." Chloe shook her head. "And trying to explain it to them would take too long."

"So we don't explain it to them." Oliver shrugged. "We just tell them what to do. I don't know turn it into a weird contest, a scavenger hunt type thing, whatever."

"But I can't be everywhere at once, I have a hard enough time figuring it all out when you're helping me." She reminded him. "I can't see the whole picture if there's five of us running around all doing something."

"Oh but you can." Oliver smiled at her. "Remember last year when the Mayor got into a huge fight with the state legislature over the budget?"

Chloe frowned then her face broke out into a huge grin. "The cameras." She smiled.

"The cameras." Oliver nodded at her. "The entirety of Metropolis is wired for sound. There's more CCTV cameras on street corners and buildings here than in Las Vegas. You could hack into that system faster than Bart can eat a burrito."

"I could watch it all, I could see everything." Chloe sounded excited. "Literally. I can see the totality of cause and effect for every action and better predict what could happen next."

"And you could keep an eye on Lex at the same time, always know where he is." Oliver nodded.

"You are…" She launched herself in his arms and kissed him, long and hard. "Absolutely brilliant." Chloe said.

"I try." Oliver shrugged and looked behind her to the nightstand. "How about that, I solved all your problems and we've still got thirty minutes until midnight." He kissed her softly and she moaned, relaxing her body against his. When he pulled away however the look on her face was less than encouraging. He smiled. "You really are tired aren't you?"

"Exhausted." She frowned at him.

"You probably want nothing more than to go to sleep right now." Oliver asked.

"So bad." She nodded at him. "You could stay though." She offered.

He kissed her forehead and pulled the covers on the bed back. "Hop in." She crawled under the covers and he quickly undressed, blew out the candles, and slid in the bed behind her, wrapping his arm around her stomach. He kissed her neck and closed his eyes.

"Seriously though." Chloe said sleepily rolling over to face him. "When it's Friday, you, me, that bottle of massage oil, and we won't leave the bedroom for a day."

"I can do you one better." Oliver said to her. "When it's Friday, you pack a bag and then it can be you, me, that bottle of massage oil and we won't leave my island for a week." He countered.

Chloe looked up at him quizzically. "Wait a minute. You own an island?"

"Not a big one." He shrugged. "It's only like 300 or 400 acres."

"You own an island?" Chloe asked him again.

"Seriously, it's not that big a deal." He defended himself.

"A month ago I had to decide between coffee and toilet paper." She raised her eyebrows at him. "And you own an island."

"Yes." Oliver nodded. "And it's fully stocked with both coffee and toilet paper, so don't worry, go to sleep." He kissed her forehead. She glared at him but didn't say anything else and instead closed her eyes. "Which did you choose?" He asked after a few minutes.

"What?" Chloe asked confused.

"Toilet paper or coffee?"

Chloe looked at him as if he didn't know her at all. "Coffee." She said simply. "I just stole toilet paper from the Talon."

"Why didn't you just steal coffee from the Talon?" Oliver asked confused. "It is a coffee shop."

Chloe stared at him for a second. "Cause that would be wrong."

"And stealing toilet paper isn't wrong?" Oliver looked at her strangely. "How are they different?"

"Toilet paper is a necessity, coffee is a luxury, if you want a luxury you have to pay for it." Chloe explained. "They are different. And you know what, you own an island." She glared at him. "Any insight you thought you could have to offer in this situation, you don't." She turned around so her back was to him again and they were quiet for a few more minutes. "I'd have thought you hated Islands." Chloe said. "Would never want to set foot on another one."

"It's not tropical." Oliver told her. "There are no beaches or jungles. It's off the coast of Scotland." He explained. "And I didn't just buy an Island. I didn't just think to myself one day, I'm bored and rich, I'll think I'll go blow thirty five million dollars on some dirt. My parent's used to rent it. They used it for Queen Industries Corporate retreats and to entertain clients, a few years we even had our Christmas Party there. Then when I took over the company I took over the tradition." He smiled thinking about it. "It's really a beautiful place. The castle is massive, old and drafty, perfect for a kid but it's still modern where it counts, very livable. A few years ago, the owners decided to sell. A hotel chain was going to come in and tear it down and build condo's, I couldn't let that happen so I bought it instead."

"Oh." Chloe said quietly. "Well that's…that's not so bad."

"I think you'd like it there." He told her. "There are tons of secret passageways and hidden stairs and at night when the fog rolls in it's kind of eerie and romantic at the same time."

"I like secret passageways." Chloe conceded turning back around. "Is it haunted?"

"It's five hundred years old." Oliver shrugged. "Probably."

"Ok, well we can go then." Chloe relented.

"We're not going to spend much time in the bedroom?" He asked wearily. "We're going to be searching secret passageways for ghosts aren't we?"

"We can do both." Chloe assured him. "And there's nothing that can be done in a bed that can't be done in a secret passageway." She kissed him then something registered to her and she pulled away. "You spent thirty five million dollars on an Island?"

Oliver opened his mouth to defend himself but at the same time the clock struck midnight.

**October 16, 2008 (Day 110)**

Chloe checked the clock on the wall and then executed a few keystrokes and checked that AC, Victor, and Bart were all where they needed to be. They'd been doing it this way for the past five days and it was working pretty well. Chloe did feel a little like the great and powerful Oz, manipulating things from behind the curtain and she had to admit that it was quite fun.

She debated something in her head and then typed rapidly. She hacked, rather easily, into the Luther Corp security system and was watching Lois' progress through the building. She bit her lip and then pulled out her cell phone. She took the comms device out of her ear for a bit of privacy and dialed a number. She saw Lois pause on the security footage, pull something out of her bag and stare at if for a second before putting it to her ear. "Hello?" She whispered.

"Hey." Chloe smiled. "Whatcha doing?"

"Oh, you know just some research." Lois bent down and took a bobby pin out of her hair and picked the lock on the hallway door. "What about you?"

"Just watching something on the computer." Chloe shrugged and then sat there and stared at the screen as Lois snuck into the room and walked over to the filing cabinets.

"Chloe, did you call me for a reason because I would much rather do this some other time if at all possible." Lois searched for the right filing cabinet.

"Yeah." Chloe sighed. "Did you know that Oliver Queen owns an Island?"

"An Island?" Lois paused. "Like a whole Island? Like he owns the whole Island?"

"The whole thing." Chloe nodded.

"Last month we had to decide between toilet paper and coffee and he owns and Island?" Lois finally found her filing cabinet and picked the lock.

"That's what I said." Chloe sighed.

"Why are we talking about Oliver and Islands?" Lois asked then paused. "How do you even know about it?"

"Just saw it in an article about frivolous spending." Chloe rubbed her eyes.

"Ok." Lois grabbed the files and walked back out of the room and down the hall to copy the list. "It's funny, actually that you called me about Oliver." She closed the copy machine and headed back to the file room. "I bumped into him the other day."

"You did?" Chloe sat up straighter.

"Yeah and he asked me about you." Lois remembered.

"He asked you about me?" Chloe bit her lip again.

"Yeah, I think he was trying to recruit you or something but I told him you were totally devoted to your new mystery boss." Lois told her replacing the original file. Chloe thought about that for a second and frowned. They'd relived this day over and over again, 110 times and he never once mentioned that he'd talked to Lois a few days before. Chloe was shocked out of her thoughts when she saw movement on one of the screens that shouldn't have any movement. "You know I never really thought about it until now but you and Oliver would be good together."

"Lois duck now." Chloe said and on instinct Lois dropped behind a desk as a security guard walked into the room, looked around and then left.

"That was close." Lois sighed. "How did you…"

"I gotta go I'll call you later." Chloe hung up the phone quickly and set it on the table cringing.

"She's gonna have questions about that." Oliver said from the doorway.

"Yeah well this way I don't have to bail her out of jail and if this doesn't work, she won't remember it anyway." Chloe shrugged.

"There is that." Oliver walked further in the room. "You can seriously keep track of everything that's going on up there?"

"Yeah." She nodded scanning over the screens. Oliver put a hand over her eyes. "Second row, fifth from the left what's going on?"

"A woman is sitting on a park bench reading the paper and rocking a stroller with a kid in it, sixth months old I think. She's got a pink shirt and cup of coffee from Starbucks, Grande double shot with soy milk."

"How can you possibly know what kind of coffee she's drinking?" Oliver looked closer at the screen.

"The marks on the cup." Chloe told him.

"Alright, first row second from the right?" Oliver asked.

"Nothing, or nothing when you covered my eyes, it was a shot of Laurent Park, an oak tree with seventeen branches and a squirrel running around the bottom." Chloe sipped her coffee.

"Ok, Third row eighth from the right." Oliver said.

"My right or your right?" Chloe asked.

"It's the same right." Oliver told her.

"Doesn't matter, there is no third row." She moved from behind his hands and smiled up at him.

"That's really amazing." Oliver sat down next to her.

"Just something I can do." She shrugged.

"Why did you call Lois?" He looked at the screens.

"I don't know I just...I don't know." Chloe shrugged. "After last night, and by the way you do know you that last night you invited me to go away for a week with you right? After last night and the whole trip thing and some other stuff, I just I started to feel a little overwhelmed."

"Overwhelmed?" Oliver asked her.

"You're Oliver Queen." Chloe told him. "My last date was at Baskin and Robin on free scoop night and when Jimmy proposed he did it with a ring from a gumball machine and you want to take me to your private island to spend a week in your 10,000 square foot castle so I just needed to talk to someone whose been there before."

"Been where? My Island?" Oliver frowned. "Lois has never been there, I don't think she even knew about it. "

"Not the Island." Chloe said.

"Come to think of it, I don't think I've taken any of my other girlfriends to the Island." Oliver pondered that for a minute.

"Been there, right there, been the girlfriend of Oliver Queen." Chloe pointed at him. "Is that what am I am now?"

"Yeah." Oliver nodded. "That's what you are."

"Well, I had to know. I had to know what that meant for me." Chloe said.

"And?" Oliver asked her. "What do you think?"

"I think it's gonna be hard and we're going to have a lot of fights like the one we had last night about the coffee and the toilet paper because there are just things you aren't going to get about me and things that I'm just not going to get about you." Chloe sighed. "What do you think?"

"I think that you and I have more things in common than you realize and I think that after everything we've done the past 110 days, and all the things you did before that, if you think that what happened last night between us was a fight, we'll do just fine." Oliver smiled at her.

"That wasn't a fight?" Chloe looked up at him.

"That was hardly a tiff. You could probably call it a spat." He conceded. She nudged her shoulder into his ribs and then turned her attention to the screens and frowned. She put her communicator back in. "AC, look alive, you're up." AC seemed to stand to attention on the screen in front of her as a Lex walked out of a building. She looked up at another monitor and started counting. When she got to one AC stepped out into the street, pulled the baseball cap on his head down to disguise his face, and braced himself for impact. The Ice Sculpture slammed into him and Chloe and Oliver winced, but it changed direction and headed further down the street before falling over and shattering. The only damage done was a bruise to AC's side and a scratch down the side of a BMW. "Good job, get to Union Street ASAP." AC just nodded and took off down the street, limping slightly. "I think we should try Victor on the ice sculpture tomorrow. It won't hurt him as much."

"Yeah." Oliver nodded absentmindedly. "What's this one here?" He pointed to a monitor showing a parking garage with a security guard sitting on a stool.

"Nothing." Chloe quickly pushed a button and the screen disappeared.

Oliver turned to her intrigued. "What was that?" He crossed his arms over his chest.

Chloe groaned and brought the screen back up. "You told me to relax, have some fun." Chloe blushed and Oliver raised his eyebrows to tell her to elaborate. "That's Paul Masters." Chloe explained. "I went to high school with him. He was the big popular sports guy who really liked making fun of the slightly strange editor of the school paper." Oliver softened a bit.

"So you're stalking him now?" He asked confused.

Chloe's hand hovered over a button and then she smiled. "Ok, watch this." She pushed a button and a whole row of car alarms simultaneously went off causing Paul to jump out of his seat and run to check it out and as soon as he reached them Chloe pushed another button and they all turned off.

Oliver smirked. "Ok, how did you do that?"

"There's an internal intercom system hooked up to the security cameras and I found a sub sonic frequency that can agitate the car's alarms." Chloe looked over at him, holding her breath while she waited to see what he would say about it.

He leaned over her. "That is so cool." He smiled pushing the button as Paul walked away and then pushing it again as soon as he turned around.

"There's more." She said suddenly giddy. She pushed a few more buttons and then leaned over a microphone. "Paul." She called out in a sharp voice, she'd distorted it enough so it sounded both authoritative and eerie. If the car alarms made him jump, Oliver was sure he'd just peed his pants.

"Hello." Paul looked around. "Is anyone there?"

"Paul." Chloe said again in a somewhat scolding tone. "You know who this is."

The guy looked around, considerably freaked out. "Ok, this isn't funny anymore."

"You should be nicer to your mother Paul." Chloe said to him. Oliver looked over at Chloe confused, wondering if she wasn't stalking him how she knew that and she put her hand over the microphone. "I'm just guessing here. Most 26 year old boys should be nicer to their mothers."

"Is this….God?" Paul asked staring at the ceiling of the parking garage.

"You are a horrible, brilliant, woman." Oliver smiled at her.

"I know." Chloe giggled. She pushed the button again. "You have mustard on your tie." She told Paul and then turned the car alarms on again.

"Ok." Oliver sat down. "We have to get serious now." He looked at her. "But can we do this in other places, not just parking garages?" He asked her. "I've got a few CEO's who screwed me on some business deals."

"Make me a list, I'll find a way." Chloe assured him. "Victor." She pulled up his screen. "You're good to go."

**October 16, 2008 (Day 147)**

"Putting aside the multitude of State and Federal laws that you just admitted to breaking, it seems like you were at least having fun." Agent McClane snorted.

"Is that what it seems like?" Chloe turned her full attention on the woman agent and the glare she was giving made McClane think maybe she'd said the wrong thing. She at least had the decency to look ashamed. "You think this is fun for me?" Chloe leaned forward. "You think this is a game?"

"I didn't…" McClane squirmed in her seat.

"You think I have it all figured out?" Chloe shook her head. "Every time I change something there are consequences." Chloe looked at the two agents and leaned back in her chair shaking her head. "I'm not talking about making someone late, I'm not talking about forcing someone to take Third instead of Second Avenue."

Powell looked at Chloe intently. "Other people have died." He asked her. "Haven't they?" Chloe just closed her eyes. "Not just Lex, or the bike messenger right?" Chloe shook her head slowly.

McClane looked over at Powell confused and then at Chloe. "What is he talking about? Other people have died?"

"No I killed other people." Chloe said quietly picking at the edges of her cup. "They died because of me."

"How does that work?" McClane asked.

"The first couple of days it was the bike messenger and Lex, that was it. Then it was just Lex for a long time but then, one day, it was Lois." Tears came to Chloe's eyes. "I was in a hurry, trying to figure out what was going to happen to Lex and I lost track of time, I was disoriented. I slipped the security guard at LutherCorp to many laxatives and he had to go home, the guard sent in to replace him wasn't as light on crime, or intruders." Chloe coughed lightly and wiped her eyes. "He caught Lois breaking into the filing cabinet and she ran and somehow…she was shot." She looked up and shook her head. "There were others. Mainly innocent bystanders that were in the wrong place at the wrong time during some of Lex's accidents."

"You?" Powell asked. Chloe looked over at him thinking for a minute. "You said something earlier about driving off a bridge. You've died haven't you?"

Chloe nodded standing up and tossing her empty cup into the trash can. "A couple of times."

"How many are a couple?" McClane asked.

"Seventeen." Chloe said.

"Seventeen…you've died seventeen times?" Powell asked choking on his coffee. McClane hit him on the back to calm him down. "I can't even imagine how weird that feeling might be."

Chloe just shrugged. "Yeah, I pretty much had that feeling down pact before this whole things started." They both looked at her confused and she just waved it off.

"So I'm guessing that it didn't work." Powell continued at Chloe's confused look. "Having your team help you while you played the man behind the curtain."

Chloe leaned back. "No, obviously since I'm still here it didn't work. It helped to stress me out less, and it made things considerably easier and far less complicated than we thought they had to be but it didn't work. Lex still died, I still woke up on Thursday. But then something happened and I had to get out from behind the computers and back on the street."

**October 16, 2008 (Day 117)**

Chloe double checked for cars before crossing the street and forgot that she was on even on the phone until Oliver screamed in her ear. "Chloe! Are you even listening to me?"

"What?" Chloe asked confused. She hadn't been listening. "Yes of course."

"No you weren't." Oliver sighed.

"You're right I wasn't." Chloe admitted. "But in case you've been asleep the past 33 days you'd remember that I have a lot to do."

"I don't understand why you won't let us help you." Oliver told her. "I thought the system was working."

"I needed to get back in the game." Chloe said.

"You were never out of the game." Oliver tried to explain. "You were coaching from the sidelines, but you were in it."

"Except I wasn't was I?" Chloe asked him. "I wasn't coaching from the sidelines. Don't you see, I was up in the press box trying to figure out the plays and my guys are on the field calling audibles." The line was silent for a minute and Chloe stopped walking and sighed. "Oliver I didn't mean that."

"No." He said tightly. "You're right."

"You had a difficult choice and you made it." Chloe tried to make him feel better.

"I made the wrong choice." He said.

"Listen in the past hundred days, I've made more wrong choices than I care to remember." Chloe smiled.

"Any of your wrong choices result in the complete decimation of downtown Metropolis?" Oliver asked her.

Chloe thought for a second. "I drove off a bridge once. Damaged the car pretty badly and it didn't do much for the bridge either."

"That's it?" Oliver asked her. "That's the best you could come up with?" He scoffed. "You damaged about five feet of bridge railing? Chloe I blew up the Daily Planet. The shockwave knocked down all the surrounding buildings within a five mile radius, it busted the city's main water and gas pipes resulting in one of the weirdest explosions of water and fire I've ever seen in my life. I destroyed twenty seven buildings, three hundred cars, disrupted all water and gas in the city limits, and the entire Midwest lost power for five hours."

"Yeah as far as screw ups go that one was pretty spectacular." Chloe smiled. "Look, I'm not going to lie, yesterday factored into my decision a little but it's not the whole reason I'm out here. I just have this feeling that I need to be in the thick of it instead of watching it from a distance. I can't explain it and I've got to go lock a waiter in a freezer."

**October 16, 2008 (Day 147)**

"And that brings us to today." Chloe said.

"So what happened today?" Powell asked her.

"You were there, you tell me." She smiled at them and leaned back in her seat.

"I want to hear your version." McClane smiled at her. "I want to see how you spin this."

"Ok, but I don't know your whole side of the story so I'm going to have to fill in the blanks as best as I can through guess work." Chloe warned them.

"Just get on with it." McClane told her.


	7. Chapter 7

**October 16, 2008 (Day 147)**

**Earlier That Morning**

Chloe woke up and smiled at Oliver where he was sitting on the coffee table. "Morning." He said and she sat up slowly. "I already fed Julia's meter so you've got some extra time." He handed her a bag and she opened it to see a strawberry cream muffin, her favorite.

"Have I told you how much I love this whole you re-living the day too thing?" Chloe smiled up at him and he leaned down and kissed her. She pulled back and looked at the bag then back at Oliver. "Wait a minute. What's going on here?"

"What do you mean?" Oliver looked at her innocently.

"I mean the muffin." Chloe said taking a bite. "You've never brought me breakfast before, what's going on?"

"I've been thinking." Oliver stood up and walked over to the kitchen.

"That's never good." Chloe joked and followed him.

"Maybe you should re-think your plan." Oliver told her.

"No." She shook her head and took another bite of the muffin.

"It's not working." Oliver reminded her. "Lex is still dying and in the end all it does is waste time."

"It's not wasting time?" Chloe said getting annoyed. "And it's not that it's not working, it's just that it hasn't worked yet."

"I'm not even sure what it is you're trying to do?"

"Save Lex, let the world have a Friday." Chloe smiled. "The same thing I've been doing for the past 146 days."

"And how well is that working out for you?" Oliver tossed the paper to her and she glared at the date on the top.

"Do you remember two minutes ago what I said about loving the fact that you re-live the day with me?" Chloe turned around and walked to the coffee machine absentmindedly plugging it in and putting coffee in the filter. "I take it back."

"Don't do that." Oliver rolled his eyes. "Don't act like a sullen child just because I suggested…"

"You didn't suggest." Chloe turned to stare at him. "You never suggest Oliver, you order. It's part of who you are, it's in your tone and most of the time that's ok. You're technically my boss when it comes to the Foundation, and definitely when it comes to the JLA, when you're the Green Arrow I'd eat my computer if you told me too, but this is my day, this is my thing ok." She poured water in the coffee pot.

"But Chloe…" Oliver held out a hand.

"You can't just come in and take over." She replaced the carafe in the coffee pot.

"Ok, I get that, but seriously Chloe…" Oliver took a step forward.

"No, I don't think you do get that." Chloe glared at him. "Someone is making me re-live this day, me. Somehow you managed to come over too but this is my thing ok, so here I call the shots. After 146 days, I have everything under control ok."

"Ok." Oliver nodded.

"Now, is there something you wanted to say?"

"No, nothing." Oliver smirked slightly, a look that Chloe couldn't seem to decipher. She turned the coffee pot on and it burst into flames, shorting out the electricity.

Chloe batted out the flames and unplugged the machine as Oliver scratched his head. She turned to him and gaped. "You couldn't have warned me?"

"I was going to." Oliver said. "But I figured that after 146 days you had everything under control."

"Shut up." Chloe smiled then busted out laughing, Oliver followed suit and soon they were clutching at their sides and trying desperately to stand up straight.

"What's all the noise out here?" AC called out from the hallway then bumped in the table. Before Chloe and Oliver could react they heard the vase shatter on the floor and for some reason that just made them laugh harder. "Ok guys, there's no power and there's glass all over the floor, as hilarious as you seem to find that, do you think maybe you could do something about it?"

"I got it." Chloe said as she got his laughter under control. She grabbed the knife and sliced the wallpaper flipping the main breaker and then sweeping up the glass. "You've got stuff to do."

"Busy day." Oliver agreed kissing her on the cheek. "Don't forget I fed Julia's meter but you still have to stop a biker from getting run over by a BMW and lock a waiter in a freezer. Meanwhile, I have a multitude of things to do that I don't fully understand or even know the reason for, but I do because you tell me too." He smiled at her. "Oh fearless leader."

Chloe pushed him to the door and then finished her sweeping up. "What was that all about?" AC looked at her amused. "That whole kissing, flirting, cutesy little thing there."

"It's…" Chloe tried to explain. "You know what I've got stuff to do." She passed him the broom.

"Oh you mean saving a biker from a BMW or locking a waiter in a freezer?" AC smirked at her and Chloe frowned. "See you don't think I listen but I listen. I don't have any idea what any of that means, but I listened."

"I'll bring you back some coffee, after locking the waiter in the freezer." Chloe assured him. She walked out of the building and waved at Jeremy as he drove off for his job.

*******

Three hours later Chloe was staring diligently at the door to the State Land Office building bored out of her mind. She pulled out her phone and dialed Oliver's number. "So was that a fight?" She asked when he picked up. "Earlier, would that be considered a fight?"

"Borderline." Oliver said to her. "There was actual yelling involved but in my experience, fights don't end in uncontrollable laughter."

"Oh yeah, how do they end?"

"Well there's the yelling, then sometimes there's the throwing of very valuable and breakable objects at my head, then there's the storming out, then the make up sex." Oliver said. "But no uncontrollable laughter. So I'd call that a disagreement."

"Oh well." Chloe sighed. "One of these days huh?"

"I've never met a girl so anxious to have a fight." Oliver laughed at her.

"You just make it sound so appealing." Chloe told him. "Apparently not only do I get to yell and throw things at you but there's a dramatic exit and make up sex involved. Who wouldn't want that?"

"Fine, those jeans this morning made your ass look big." Oliver said with an amused tone in his voice.

"Nice try but I can't throw things at you over the phone." She told him. "Or slam the door. I can't even slam the phone shut. I can just push the "end call" button somewhat forcefully."

"So how's the plan going?" Oliver changed the topic.

"I take it all back." She said with a bored tone in her voice.

"Take all what back?" Oliver asked on the other end of the phone.

"What I said this morning." Chloe swung her feet back and forth and stared at the doors to the building across the street. "This is a horrible, horrible plan, a colossal waste of time and we're never doing it again."

"You're bored aren't you?" Oliver smiled at her.

"So bored." Chloe groaned. "You know I thought that following Lex would be easier, I could just catch things as they happen instead of running myself ragged all over the city but I never realized that, aside from all of the ways the universe seems to want Lex dead, he is an extremely boring person."

"So the life of the corporate executive not exactly the way you imagined it?" Oliver joked with her.

"He gets out of his car, goes into a building, sits in a meeting for two hours, gets back in his car and drives to another building where we start the whole process over. My butt is falling asleep, I'm freezing my ass off and I'm so bored that I've counted the bricks on the Daily Planet building."

Oliver was silent for a minute. "All of them?"

"Well I counted one side then multiplied it by four to get an approximation of the exterior brick count." Chloe explained.

"Right, and?" Oliver found himself intrigued.

"134,029 bricks, give or take a hundred." Chloe answered with a yawn.

"Well, look on the brightside." Oliver told her. "It's 7:30, Lex is still alive so you get to have dinner at Pipper's again."

"Not that I ever get to enjoy it." Chloe pointed out. "That restaurant is a death trap. Gotta go, Lex is on the move."

"We should have a cool code name for him or something."

"You really think anyone's listening into our conversation?" Chloe asked amused.

"Like Cue Ball, or Mr. Clean." Oliver continued as if she hadn't said anything.

"Ok, if that's what you think of as cool code names, I can't believe I ever let you pick mine." Chloe hung up the phone and got in her car, following Lex's limo closely.

************

Lex got out at Pipper's and walked in with a business associate. Chloe waited a few minutes then followed him. She'd poached the reservation of a woman named Jennifer Ross who, if Oliver did his job right, was stuck in an elevator between floors in her office building and wouldn't have a use for the reservation anyway. Chloe had nothing personal against Jennifer Ross it was just that her table was in the perfect spot. Close proximity to Lex's table but in a place where Chloe could keep an eye on him but he couldn't see her. She politely listened to the special's and ordered whatever she could remember from the waiter's recitation and sent him on his way.

Her eyes didn't ever seem to leave Lex but she was taking in everything. She knew that the couple sitting three tables behind her and two rows over was holding hands and in about ten seconds the guy was going to propose. She would say yes and cry and the restaurant would clap. She knew that the waiter over in the corner just picked up a piece of bread off the floor and put it back in the bread basket before delivering it to the table by the window and she knew that in five seconds the doors were going to open and a man and a woman were going to walk in.

**Interrogation Room**

"That's you guys." Chloe interrupted her story.

"We figured." McClane rolled her eyes.

**Pipper's Restaurant**

The doors opened and the woman walked in first looking annoyed and a little bit angry. Chloe could see the bulge of a gun under her jacket and had a feeling that if the guy didn't stop talking in the next five seconds she was going to shoot him. The man was oblivious however and just kept on talking. Chloe wasn't close enough to hear the conversation but she could guess what they were saying.

"And he doesn't use fancy sauces or marinades. It's pure steak, steak the way God intended." Powell said dreamily.

"I am three seconds away from dragging you outback, killing you and hiding the body. Just to ruin your day, because I'm a very unhappy person and I can't stand it when people around me are happy." McClane growled.

"You're right. You're a severely unpleasant person and I don't know how I can stand to be around you every day." Powell said to her.

**Interrogation Room**

"Ok, that's not what happened." McClane glared at her.

"Do you want to tell this story?" Chloe asked her.

"I'd be happy to." McClane nodded taking over.

**Pipper's Restaurant**

McClane climbed out of the car as Powell handed his keys to the valet. He was still talking about that damn steak, he'd been talking about that damn steak for eight months. It had gotten worse the closer they got to the actual day they were supposed to go eat there and today he was completely unbearable. She was surprised she hadn't shot him yet. They walked in the restaurant and still his narration of the dinner they were about to eat never stopped. "And he doesn't use fancy sauces or marinades. It's pure steak, steak the way God intended." Powell explained.

McClane turned to Powell and glared. "That's enough about the steak?" Powell asked and McClane nodded. "Got it."

They were seated and handed menus and for a second McClane thought Powell was going to go item by item in the menu and expound on every aspect of the food, instead he took McClane's menu from her and handed it back to the waiter. "We already know what we want." He said and then preceded to order for the both of them.

McClane took the opportunity to get a good look around the restaurant, she might have been off duty but you couldn't take the cop out of the girl. There was a couple in the corner who was about to get engaged, a waiter who was laughing with a busboy in the back, and Lex Luther to her left having what she assumed was a business diner. The most interesting thing that caught McClane's eye however was a girl in the back. She was alone and not at the best table in the house, very close to the kitchen and the bathrooms and hidden behind a large plant. The thing that was the most interesting about her was that McClane knew with one glance that the girl was doing the same thing she was, scoping out the restaurant. The girl wasn't a cop, that was obvious at first sight so the question then became why was the girl scoping the place out.

A minute later it all became clear when her attention was firmly placed on the table in front of her, the table where Lex Luther was. "Powell." McClane called to him. "What do you make of her?"

"Who?" Powell turned around and saw Chloe. "Young girl, pretty, waiting on a date perhaps."

"Really?" McClane turned to him astonished.

"What?" Powell asked confused and looked at Chloe again.

"How did you ever make it through the academy?" McClane shook her head. "She's up to something."

"Could that be dinner?" Powell asked and McClane glared. "No of course it couldn't because it never is with you."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I mean you do this all the time, everywhere we go you see bad guys." Powell told her. "Remember when we went to Eva's soccer game and you were convinced that the referee was a criminal."

"He was." McClane reminded him. "He was selling drugs."

"Ok, bad example." Powell said. "She's just a girl, trying to have diner, leave it alone and relax for one day, please."

"She's watching him." McClane tried to explain.

"That's Lex Luther. Maybe she's never seen a famous person before, maybe she's just star struck, maybe she thinks he's cute?" McClane raised an eyebrow at that. "What? Some people like that bald look."

"It's not that." McClane said. "She's not stealing glances, she watching him."

"You are paranoid." Powell sighed annoyed but like McClane kept his eyes on Chloe. A minute later Lex excused himself from his table and Chloe ducked behind a menu as he passed. McClane gave Powell a significant glance and a second Chloe got up and followed him.

"Come on." McClane stood up and Powell groaned loudly.

"No." He shook his head. "No, I'm sitting here, I'm eating my steak and I'm going to enjoy it."

There was a large crash from the back, a second of silence and then a scream. Powell glared and got out of his seat as McClane took off to the back room and found a waitress screaming hysterically as a waiter tried to comfort her. "Back there." The waiter said strained.

McClane and Powell took out their weapons and headed through the swinging door and saw Lex Luther on the ground Chloe standing over him with a bloody knife.** "**You are seriously starting to piss me off." Chloe said to Lex's body on the ground.

"Told you." McClane smiled.

"I hate you." Powell said pulling his cuffs out of his pocket and stepped over the body to Chloe.

"Wait." She said. "Do you have an evidence bag?" Powell looked at her confused. "For the knife?"

"I'll get something." McClane said climbing over the pots and pans and digging around the kitchen.

"Special Agent." Chloe smiled at Powell awkwardly holding the knife up. McClane walked back with a large Ziploc and Chloe dropped the knife into it. She turned around without having to be told and clasped her hands behind her backs. Powell cuffed her and led her out of the room as McClane called it in.

**Interrogation Room**

"Yeah." Chloe nodded. "Now that I hear it from your point of view, I can see how you're so convinced that I killed him."

"Because you did." McClane pointed out.

"You want to hear my side of the story?" Chloe asked.

"This ought to be great." Powell said and Chloe turned to him smiling because Chloe realized he wasn't being sarcastic, he really thought it would be interesting.

"Thank You." Chloe said.

**Pipper's Restaurant**

Chloe watched Lex get up from his table and head for the back room. Chloe hid behind her menu as he passed her table then waited a second before following him. She saw the door at the end of the hall swing back and forth and headed that way. She was waylaid by a waitress. "Excuse me what's back there?"

"The kitchen." The waitress smiled. "But it's a staff area."

"Yes, I just need to get back there for a second." Chloe smiled.

"I'm sorry but you really can't be back here." The waitress smiled sweetly while trying to steer Chloe back to the dining room.

"Yeah, but just…" Chloe held up a finger then spun around the waitress and ran into the room. She reached the door and pushed hard, only to have it slam into something and swing back at her as a large crash was heard in the room. "You've got to be kidding me." Chloe pushed the door open again and saw Lex on the ground covered in pots and pans and whatever else used to be on the shelf.

"Please tell me I didn't just kill Lex Luther with a swinging door and some pots and pans." Chloe reached down and started removing the pans bowls from on top of him, happy to find that she didn't technically kill him with a swinging door. No, as was Chloe's life for the past 146 days, she'd hit him with the swinging door and as best as Chloe could figure, sent him crashing into the table behind him, knocking the pots, pans, bowls, and a very large knife on top of Lex. Any other person on any other day would most likely have come away with a bump on the head and a bit of embarrassment but not Lex, not today, the knife was deeply imbedded in his chest. The waitress came in behind her and screamed and ran out. Chloe reached down and pulled the knife out just as the door swung open to revel Powell and McClane, guns drawn.

She looked down at Lex and sighed. "You are seriously starting to piss me off." She told the dead Lex and then looked up as Powell pulled his cuffs out.

"Told you so." McClane smiled.

"I hate you." Powell said.

**Interrogation Room**

"And here we are." Chloe sighed, finishing her story.

"He was stabbed by accident?" McClane said. "That's your story?"

"That's what happened." Chloe shrugged.

"There's one thing I'm confused about." Powell said before McClane and Chloe could get into it. "Lex is dead, so at midnight you'll just start the day over right?" Chloe nodded. "So why even bother to tell us? Why waste all this time telling us the story?"

"And now you get to the point of this exercise." Chloe smiled. "Everyday things were inherently the same but there was always a different outcome, Lex always died in a different way, the day never ended the same. Even those days I've been arrested, it was never by the same cop, it was never at the same time, so I learned pretty quickly that when a pattern emerged, when changes I made started to stick, started to repeat themselves, that I should pay attention because they were obviously important."

"So what changed today?"

"No today." Chloe shook her head. "Thirty days ago something changed, and it's been the same ever since, no matter what I do."

"And that would be?"" McClane asked.

"You guys." Chloe looked at them. "This isn't the first time I've met you, this isn't the first time you've arrested me, this isn't the first time I've sat in this room."

"You're saying we've done this before?" Powell asked skeptically.

"I've never told you the whole story before but yeah." Chloe looked around the room she'd been in for the past thirty nights. McClane looked skeptical and Chloe sighed. "How's Eva?" Chloe asked with a smile on her face. "That's your daughter's name isn't it? Eva? She's seventeen years old, just got the lead in the Community Center's production of My Fair Lady and walks around the house singing day and night doesn't she? The Community Center lost its funding though, they're threatening to shut it down and she's really upset about it. Has dreams of getting into Julliard." Powell shifted closer to Chloe intrigued and a little freaked out. "She's seeing a guy named Marcus, you should watch out for him." Chloe said. "He's a player." Powell just stared at Chloe and she turned her attention to McClane.

"And I hear your house hunting, you and the husband need another bedroom now right?" Chloe smiled. "Congratulations by the way, I know you just got the official confirmation from the doctor this morning and they say you shouldn't tell anyone until the third month but Powell's your partner, he really should know."

"You're pregnant?" Powell turned to McClane who was blinking, her mouth opening and closing.

"If you want my opinion." Chloe leaned forward. "I hear you've got it narrowed down to two houses." McClane nodded mutely. "I know you like the one in Antioch more but it's got termites and the roof is bad."

"But the real estate agent…." McClane said.

"Yeah he's a trickster that one." Chloe smiled. "He's actually done this before, he buys run down houses, fixes them up all pretty on the inside but doesn't bother with the structural stuff you know, he's been reported twice but I think someone from the FBI might actually get something done about it. Anyway the one in Brentwood doesn't seem like it's what you really want but the bones of the house are good and it's underpriced just enough that factoring in escrow you could have the cosmetic fixes done in more than enough time for the baby, and it's got room to add on. I'm telling you go with Brentwood." Chloe said.

"I don't understand how you know all this stuff." Powell said.

"After day thirty days of sitting in this room I decided to figure out a little bit more about my captors. It doesn't take long for me to do research now a days, a few minutes on the computer, a few hours doing some leg work, I used to be a reporter remember. But I still don't understand what is so special about you guys, no offence."

"So you're saying that all of a sudden, no matter what you do, you end your day sitting in this room with us?" McClane stood up and started pacing.

"That's exactly what I'm saying." Chloe leaned back in her chair. "What do you have to do with this, why you?"

"I would have thought that was glaringly obvious." McClane smiled and sat back down.

"Really?" Chloe seemed intrigued. "Please do enlighten me."

"Just wait, I kind of like this feeling, this all knowing, omnipotent feeling." McClane smirked. "Is this how you feel all the time, knowing everything that's going to happen." Powell and Chloe glared at her. "Ok fine, maybe it's not who we are that's important, maybe it's what we are."

"Uptight, close minded, annoyingly smug?" Chloe offered.

"Cops." McClane sighed.

"Same thing." Chloe shrugged and this time McClane and Powell glared at her. "Ok, but you're not the first cops I've come across since this whole thing started, not by a long shot."

"No, but most likely we're the first cops that would have actually sat and listened to this whole insane story of yours and not called Belle Reve."

"That is true." Chloe shivered.

"Someone did listen to your story and call Belle Reve didn't they?" Powell asked quietly.

"More than once." Chloe whispered. "Ok, so you're cops who actually listened to my story and didn't think I was crazy, what good does that do me?"

"We're cops." McClane said. "We take the clues presented to us and form connections and solve cases."

"So I keep running into you so you can solve this for me?"

"Help you solve this." Powell said catching up with McClane thinking. "We can help you."

"How?" Chloe looked around.

"By seeing things you don't see, finding something you didn't notice." Powell's smile got bigger.

"I've lived this day 147 times there is nothing that I didn't notice." Chloe scoffed.

"Oh but there is." Powell sat down, the smile so big now it had taken over his whole face. McClane and Chloe waited impatiently for Powell to continue. He turned to McClane. "You're right this is an incredible feeling."

"You guys are starting to piss me off." Chloe glared at them.

"Ok, ok, I get it." Powell said. "There is something that you missed." Chloe looked even more confused. "You said you figured out anything that repeated from day to day was important, like Lex dying, like us arresting you."

"Yeah." Chloe nodded.

"And you said that the only thing that never changed since day one was Lex dying. But you're wrong." Powell told her. "Lex's death wasn't the only thing that never changed. Every morning, no matter what you did, no matter how many times it happened, the coffee machine exploded."

"Yes but…" Chloe held up her hand.

"And…" McClane jumped in, realizing what Powell meant. "The toilet, every day no matter what happens the toilet overflows."

"Ok, that's true but…" Chloe tried to interrupt.

"There's something else." Powell started pacing. "Something else that happened every day no matter what."

"The neighbors?" McClane asked.

"No she could stop them from getting evicted." Powell shook his head.

"She stopped the biker from getting run over." McClane sighed. "She stopped Lois from getting arrested."

"Lois!" Chloe said suddenly.

"No, you stop her from getting arrested." Powell shook his head.

"Yes, I can stop her from getting caught but no matter what I do, no matter what I say I can't stop her from breaking into LuthorCorp." Chloe stood up excited. "That's it, well that's not it, I have no idea what any of this means, but it's a start." She was pacing back and forth now. "So all I have to do is stop the coffee pot from exploding, stop Bart from using the toilet and stop Lois from breaking into LuthorCorp and it'll be Friday?" Chloe paused. "How does that make any sense?"

"It doesn't." Powell said deflated. "How could any of those things have an effect on Lex Luther?"

They all seemed to deflate, their miraculous epiphany now seemed as if they were just grasping at straws. "Unless." McClane spoke up, her face splitting into a grin. "It's not how they affect Lex, it's how they affect you."

"Ok, the coffee machine blowing up shorts out the power but I get it turned back on so that can't be it." Chloe shook her head.

"But it blows up, I mean there's a fire and everything." Powell says.

"A small one, it completely destroys the coffee machine." Chloe shrugged. "Which stops me from having coffee first thing in the morning. I'll be the first one to admit I have an unhealthy attachment to coffee but an extra twenty minutes without coffee can't be that important." Chloe sighed.

"Does it destroy anything else?" McClane asked. "The fire?"

Chloe wracked her brain thinking hard. "There's some smoke damage to the cabinets, the refrigerator gets scorched but nothing a wet rag and some elbow grease…" Chloe trailed off, something was nagging at the corner of her mind. "The Haiku."

"The bad poem?" Powell asked.

"Oliver hung it up on the fridge as a joke and it got destroyed in the fire." Chloe said. "What if it's not a poem? What if it's something else."

"What though?" McClane asked.

"I don't know, I haven't thought about that stupid poem in over a hundred and fifty days." Chloe sighed.

"Ok, so we think we've got the coffee pot down, what about the toilet?" Powell asked moving on.

"The worst day it flooded the entire apartment." Chloe said. "Into the hallway and everything, all the flooring was destroyed but that doesn't' seem important, because some days I caught it in time so that it only flooded the bathroom."

"What about downstairs?" McClane asked.

"Huh?" Chloe looked confused.

"I remember you telling Bart to check if it leaked downstairs, did it?"

"I never asked again." Chloe said slowly. "I don't know." McClane shrugged and smiled. "What about Lois though?"

"Well that's the most obvious of them all." Powell smiled at her. "You actually had it right on the first day."

"How's that?" Chloe looked at him quizzically.

"The list." McClane nodded catching on. "Every day she breaks into LuthorCorp, every day she steals that list of Dummy Corporations, and the first day you stole it from her."

Chloe just sat there for a second with a wry smile on her face. "How is it that I never saw this? Any of this?"

"You were looking bigger picture." Powell shrugged. "It happens, when you're so focused on the end game you don't see the little things."

"For 147 days?" Chloe asked incredulously.

"You got tunnel vision." McClane excused her.

"So what happens now?" Powell asked.

"Now? Now I figure out what the hell that stupid Haiku meant, I figure out what the toilet messed up and I steal that list from Lois and figure out what the hell it all has to do with each other, and if Oliver get's here in time, I get some more of that Tiramisu." Chloe checked her watch, it was 11:15.

Almost as soon as she said that there was a knock on the door. Powell looked at Chloe confused as McClane got up and opened the door. "Sorry to interrupt ma'am, Oliver Queen is here for Miss Sullivan. He's posted bail."

"Great." Chloe stood up. "We've still got 45 minutes to get the tiramisu." She clapped slightly getting up and walking to the door.

Powell and McClane looked at each other feeling as if they'd just been dismissed. They got up and followed her to the lobby. Oliver Queen was leaning up against the counter smiling and flirting with the officer on call. He stiffened and turned around, almost as if he could feel that Chloe was coming up behind him. He turned slowly and the fake smile he'd put on for the officer was transformed. Powell watched as Chloe's own smile got bigger when she saw him. "Hey Sidekick." He lazily draped an arm over her shoulder and squeezed her slightly. "How'd it go?"

"Really good." She nodded at him. Powell noticed the look that passed between the two of them, a look that he'd given his partner countless times, a look that partners give each other, partners who have worked together for a long time where an entire conversation could be had using only facial expressions. A look that Powell knew meant "I'll tell you about it later."

"Special Agent McClane, Special Agent Powell." Oliver reached his hand out and they shook both shook it, getting the feeling that he'd met them before. "Congratulations on the baby." He nodded at McClane.

"Thanks." She said a little hesitantly.

"Did you tell her about the Antioch house?" Oliver asked Chloe.

"Yeah." She nodded. "We talked about the houses."

"Did you warn him about Marcus?" Oliver asked.

"Did he do something else?" Chloe groaned.

"The usual." Oliver said in a disgusted tone of voice. He stole a look at Powell. "Three girls in one night."

"My daughter?" Powell asked fearfully.

"No." Oliver shook his head. "She was busy at rehearsal. She's got a set of lungs on her doesn't she?"

"Amazing voice right?" Chloe smiled.

"Thanks." Powell smiled.

"I'm working on that funding problem at the Community Center, just as soon as it's Friday, tell her not to worry." Oliver said to him. "As for Marcus. I could take care of him for you."

"Are you offering to kill my daughter's boyfriend?" Powell asked cautiously.

"What?" Oliver looked offended. "Do I look like Vito Corleone? Well I'm a little like Vito Corleone, I could make his father an offer he can't refuse, but more in a really good job offer out of the state way and not in a swimming with the fishes sort of way."

"Thanks." Powell smiled. "But I think I'm going to let my daughter make her own decisions and possibly her own mistakes."

"Your call but the offer is open ended so you know." Oliver nodded.

"Not that I'll remember it tomorrow." Powell said.

"There is that." Chloe mused. "Well, thanks for your help guys, couldn't have done it without you. We've gotta get going, time is of the essence."

"Tonight?" Oliver looked confused. "Lex is already dead."

"Powell told me about this Italian place, best tiramisu I've ever had, you've got to try it." Chloe checked her watch 11:30. "If we leave now, we can make it before midnight." She explained.

"Lead the way." Oliver smiled and nodded his goodbye to the Special Agents before following Chloe out the door.

"What are the chances that we just let a raving psychotic and likely murderer walk through those doors?" McClane asked as she watched Oliver and Chloe smiling and laughing down the steps of the building.

"Well if we wake up tomorrow, it's Friday and we remember everything, we'll go pick her up again." Powell shrugged.

"Yeah, ok." McClane sighed and turned around. "So Eva's in the school play? Is that why you've been humming "I Could Have Danced All Night" for the past two weeks?" She smiled.

"When were you going to tell me you were house hunting?" Powell asked. "And pregnant?"

"Point taken." McClane said turning and heading back to her office. "So what are we going to say on the report?"

"I say we don't write one, wait and see how it all turns out." Powell said looping his arm around McClane shoulders.

******************

"So do we have a plan?" Oliver asked as he and Chloe walked out of the Italian restaurant, Chloe holding a bag of tiramisu. She didn't even wait, she pulled the to go box out of the bag and dug in immediately, after taking her first bite she served one to Oliver. "Wow, that is good."

"I know right?" Chloe smiled. "So the plan, you're never going to believe this." Chloe smiled and told him what she'd come up with Powell and McClane.

"The coffee pot, the toilet, and Lois' list." Oliver took another bite of Tiramisu. "That's what they came up with?" He looked skeptical.

"It's not like we have any other options, or ideas." She pointed out taking another bite and pulling the box away from Oliver who was going for his next bite.

"Ok, but it seems a little farfetched." Oliver stole another bite.

Chloe stopped walking and turned to him. "Oliver, in two minutes, I'm going to wake up on the couch and relive October 16th for the 148th day in a row. Our lives are farfetched."

"You speak the truth." Oliver nodded. "And you hog the tiramisu." He gasped as Chloe ate the last bite.

"We'll get some more tomorrow." Chloe assured him throwing the box in the trash. She looked at her watch and smiled. "Thirty seconds." She turned to him. "See you in a minute?" She smiled.

"See you in a minute." Oliver leaned down and kissed her.

Chloe closed her eyes as Oliver's lips met hers and then suddenly they were gone.


	8. Chapter 8

**October 16, 2008 (Day 148)**

Chloe sighed and opened her eyes to see Oliver smiling at her from the coffee table. "That is really disconcerting." Chloe said sitting up and getting her good morning kiss.

"I know what you mean." He smiled and held out his hand to her. "So to make sure you didn't turn on the coffee pot this morning." He led her to the kitchen and she smiled at the sight of the two Starbucks cups on the counter.

"Why exactly is it that it took us 148 days to do this?" She asked taking the lid off her cup so she could add her sugar and creamer.

"Humans are very strange, we like repetition, we like routine, we don't like change." Oliver shrugged sipping his coffee.

"Yeah but on the flip side, the definition of insanity is repeating the same action and expecting different results." Chloe pointed out sipping her coffee. "And that's basically what I've been doing for the past 148 days."

"Today we're going to change all that." Oliver smiled at her.

"I can feel it already, today's going to be different." Chloe sighed contented and walked into the bedroom to change her clothes. When she emerged dressed for the day Oliver was sitting at the table reading the Haiku. "So this is still a really bad poem." He waved the paper at her.

"Or the key to everything." Chloe shrugged grabbing her coat.

"Where are you going?" Oliver stood up confused.

"Well, Lois isn't going to steal that list until two, so I've got some time to kill. Julia's a really nice girl so I'd rather her not get evicted and that biker is still going to run into the middle of the street." Chloe pointed out. "And I need you to head to Pino's."

"The waiter?" Oliver grabbed his jacket.

"If Lex still makes it to lunch before I can fit all the pieces together it won't matter will it?" Chloe smiled.

"I'll be at Pino's." Oliver smiled and leaned down to kiss Chloe.

"Coffee?" AC's tired voice asked as he shuffled into the kitchen.

"Uh no." Chloe shook her head and doubled checked that she had her quarters. "I've got some errands to run, but I'll be back later."

AC grunted and walked into the kitchen. Chloe and Oliver didn't realize until it was too late and he had already turned the coffee pot on. The outlet exploded. "Holy crap." AC was wide awake now as he batted out the flames and the lights flickered and went out. Chloe walked over to the hall, sliced the wallpaper exposing the breaker, flicked the switch and turned with an astonished look at Oliver.

"God hates that coffee pot." Chloe said.

"Apparently." Oliver smiled and leaned down to kiss Chloe. "I've got a waiter to lock in a freezer." He smiled before walking out.

AC dumped the remnants of the coffee pot in the trash and looked confused at Chloe. "You guys are weird in the morning." AC yawned. "And what's with the kissing?" He asked motioning to Chloe and then the door that Oliver just walked out of. "When did that happen?"

"About 60 days ago." Chloe shrugged.

AC frowned. "60 days ago we were in Brazil." He said confused.

"For you." Chloe mumbled.

"You're really weird in the morning." AC shook his head.

"Just go back to bed, I'll bring you some Starbucks when I get back." Chloe promised walking out the door and heading down the stairs and smiling to herself. She raced to the meter as the reader finished with the car in front of Julia's. "Morning." Chloe smiled as she slipped quarters in the meter.

"Morning." The reader said moving onto the next car.

"Morning Julia." Chloe called over her shoulder as Julia ran out of the apartment and down the steps frantically waving her hands. "Tell Nathan good luck on the job."

"Thanks." Julia slowed as she noticed the meter had been fed. "I will." She called down the street confused before turning and going back inside.

Chloe smiled and breathed the fresh morning air as she went over the Haiku in her head. She reached the corner just as the bike messenger got there. She reached out, grabbed his jacket and pulled him back as the BMW hurtled around the corner. "Ok Brian, this is getting ridiculous." Chloe said as the guy caught his breath and realized what could have just happened. "You need to promise me you're going to start paying attention because I won't be there to help you all the time." Chloe shook her head and walked toward the coffee cart.

"Hey!" He called after her. "How do you know my name?"

Chloe was paying for her coffee when she got a text from Oliver, "Waiter on Ice." She smiled, texted him back and headed to the Isis Foundation as Julia was wishing Nathan good luck on his first day. She smiled and waved before heading up the stairs and into her apartment. As soon as she opened the door she slid across the floor and screamed in surprise as Bart ran out and caught her before she fell.

"I'm so sorry…" He started.

"Great." Chloe smiled genuinely at him. "You used the bathroom! I'm going to check the offices downstairs, tell AC I've got his coffee."

"But the water…." Bart called after her confused.

"There's a knob behind the toilet, it'll shut the water off." She called over her shoulders. She ran down the stairs and walked into the Isis Foundation trying to get her bearings. "Living room, dining room, kitchen…" She walked through the floor plan of the apartment upstairs. "So that would mean the bathroom would be here." She turned around and smiled. Sitting in the corner of the room was a stack of boxes that she hadn't gotten to go through yet, getting thoroughly soaked from a leak in the ceiling. "Perfect."

"I'm sorry Chlo." Bart said from behind her wincing when he saw the soaked boxes. "I totally forgot about the toilets."

"You did great." She turned to him smiling. "Perfect. Thanks."

"Are you being sarcastic?" Bart asked slowly.

"I know it doesn't make much sense, but you did exactly what I wanted you to do." Chloe assured him.

"You wanted me to flood the apartment and ruin your work?" Bart frowned.

"Sort of, I promise I'll explain when it's Friday." Chloe said to him. "For now could you grab the guys and help me try and salvage what we can from these?"

"Sure." Bart said. "Whatever you need me to do." He ran up the stairs as Chloe pulled the boxes away from the drip and set a trashcan up to catch the water.

Oliver got back an hour later and walked into the office only to be stopped at the door. Everywhere he looked there were papers, hanging from the ceiling, lying across table tops, and cluttering up the floor. "Good. Bart used the bathroom." Oliver smiled. "Any luck so far?"

"Nothing." Chloe sighed pealing two wet pages apart. "Not yet anyway. Did you get the puppy?"

"Bought and delivered." Oliver nodded making his way into the room and bending down to help.

"I'm not even going to ask about the puppy." AC said. "But if you could just tell us what it is we're looking for, it might be easier to know if we've found it."

"I told you, I'm not sure what I'm looking for." Chloe said. "But I might know it when I see it."

"Thank you, that was helpful." AC sighed.

"That's what I'm here for." Chloe smiled at him. She thought for a second and pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket. "See if any of these words pop out at you." She passed AC the Haiku and he read over it confused. He shook his head and passed it along to Victor who frowned and passed it Bart.

"What the hell is this?" Bart asked passing it back to Chloe.

"I don't know." Chloe sighed. That's what was really killing her, after 148 days of knowing everything, to not know anything was frustrating her.

"How about a lunch break huh guys?" Oliver offered and they all scrambled to stand up and get out of there.

"Thanks man." Bart clapped Oliver on the back as AC and Victor argued over Indian or Chinese on their way out the door.

"You ok?" Oliver sat down on the floor next to Chloe.

"I don't know. What am I even doing?" Chloe motioned to all the papers. "I don't know what I'm looking for, I won't even know when I find it, if I find it."

"You'll find it." Oliver pulled her against his chest. "You'll find it and you'll fix this."

"Your faith in me is completely unwarranted you know that right?" She pointed out as she snuggled herself against him.

"Nah." He shook his head. "You've proven yourself time and time again. You're just feeling a little tired, a little hopeless." He rubbed her back. "You know what you need?" He looked down at her and pulled something out from behind his back.

Chloe's eyes lit up. "Tiramisu?"

"One for each of us." He said pulling out the boxes and handing her one and a spoon.

"I'll figure this out." She shook her head. "I will."

"That's the spirit." Oliver said. "It'll be easier tomorrow, or today, or you know what I mean, when the papers in the boxes aren't soaking wet and stuck together." Chloe just smiled and nodded at him.

**October 16, 2008 (Day 155)**

Oliver rolled over in the bed and frowned in his sleep when his hands hit an empty mattress. He opened his eyes and looked at the clock. It was 11:48, he and Chloe had gone to bed at 10:00 that night after failing to save Lex from a standard run of the mill hit and run that she did not see coming. Having been more worried about the strange and unusual deaths, she forgot to pay attention to the mundane ones.

Oliver pulled on his pants and walked into the living room which was empty. He sighed and walked down stairs to the offices. He found her sitting on the floor going through the papers from the boxes for the two hundredth time. "Anything?" He asked sitting down on the floor next to her.

"Nothing." She dropped the papers to the floor. "Not one single thing that means anything to me. I don't get it I really thought this would work, that this was right. I thought McClane and Powell were onto something, but I guess it's just another dead end." She leaned her head on Oliver's shoulder. "That list we got from Lois told us nothing except for names of Dummy Corporations. I still don't understand the Haiku, and I have no clue what it has to do with anything but I can recite it in my sleep and the boxes, these stupid boxes." Chloe kicked them hard sending them toppling to the ground.

"So we start over, back to the basics." Oliver shrugged. "We'll expand outside of Metropolis if we have to. We'll…" Chloe held a hand up.

"Shh." She said to him.

"What?" Oliver looked around as she stared slightly unfocused at the wall.

"There's something there, right at the edge of my brain and I can't grab it." She pulled herself up and started pacing, mumbling to herself, going over everything she could think of, trying to figure out what triggered that feeling, that on the verge of discovery feeling. She stopped and stared at the floor by Oliver. "The boxes Oliver." She turned to him excited. "The stupid freaking sodding beautiful boxes."

"What about the boxes."

"We had it wrong." Chloe was jumping now. "Well not wrong just backwards, or inside out."

"I'm on pins and needles here Chloe." Oliver smiled at her.

"It was…" Oliver's watch beeped the hour, it was midnight and Chloe's vision faded to black and then she woke and smiled.

**October 16, 2008 (Day 156)**

"The boxes." Chloe shouted as Oliver stood in front of her holding out a cup of coffee.

"Yeah what about the boxes, I've been dying to know."

"It's been like six seconds." Chloe scoffed taking a deep sip of her coffee.

"For you." Oliver pointed out. "Do you realize that I wake up an hour before you at the Clock Tower, I shower, I get dressed, I get you coffee then I come over here."

"Oh." Chloe smiled sheepishly. For some reason she always imagined that when the clock struck Midnight Oliver just went back to his position on the coffee table in front of her, just as she went back to the couch

"The boxes." Oliver prompted her.

"Right." She jumped off the couch and headed for the door then stopped, backtracked to the kitchen, grabbed the coffee pot and threw it in the trashcan, ran to the bathroom and turned the water off then came back out into the living room. "Sorry, follow me." She called to Oliver and headed down the stairs. She stormed into the office and froze. "Crap, could run down and intercept the biker while I feed the meter?"

"You're killing me here with these boxes." Oliver said. "Can't you just tell me?"

"It's all about the reveal." Chloe smiled. "Go, save the messenger." She shoved him out of the office as she dug through her desk drawer for coins. She fed the meter and turned around to see Julia rushing down the stairs. "Hey." Chloe smiled and waved and realized that this could be the last day, that this could be the day Julia remembers when she wakes up on Friday. "Chloe Sullivan, I just moved in next door, I run the Isis Foundation. I was grabbing something from my car and I saw it had expired, I hope that's ok." She held out her hand for Julia to shake it.

"No, that's great, thanks." Julia smiled. "Here, let me pay you back." She dug in her pockets. "I'm Julia by the way."

"It's just a few quarters." Chloe waved her off. "By me a coffee some day."

"Yeah. Ok." Julia smiled at her and her smile got wilder as Oliver walked up.

"Done." He said wrapping his arms around Chloe's waist. "Hey." He nodded at Julia.

"Hey." Julia nodded and looked over at Chloe giving her that universal girl look for "great catch". Chloe just smiled. "See you later ok? We'll do that coffee some time."

"Sure." Chloe nodded as Oliver dragged her back into the building.

"Ok, explain, boxes now." Oliver said after the doors closed. "Please put me out of my misery."

She smiled and ran to the corner where the boxes were stacked up and grabbed the top one. "We were right, the boxes are important." She opened it up and dumped the contents on the floor and then walked over to Oliver. "But not what was in them, the actual boxes themselves." She dropped it on the table and pointed at the strange logo on the side. "Where did you get these boxes?" Chloe asked him. "These were yours not mine."

Oliver looked at the logo and frowned, it wasn't from any of his many companies, but it was familiar. "Oh my god, we took them from the lab." Oliver turned to Chloe. "For some reason we assumed the lab would be totally computerized but they had mountains of hard copy files we weren't expecting so we didn't have anything to take them away in. Bart found the boxes somewhere in the lab and used them."

"Which lab?" Chloe walked over to the computer system and turned it on.

"San Antonio." Oliver said and Chloe pulled up all the information she could had on the San Antonio lab.

"Ok, were did he get them, were they in the trash? Were they in an office?" Chloe typed rapidly.

"I don't know Bart got them." Oliver said and Chloe turned around to stare at him. "I should go wake him up and ask him right?"

"Yeah, and grab my coffee." Chloe called after him.

Ten minutes later Oliver came back down dragging Bart behind him. He was still half asleep. "What the hell is going on?" Bart looked around.

"Ok, I need you to buckle down and wake up for me." Chloe said to him. Bart nodded. "Six months ago, in San Antonio, you guys took out a 33.1."

"Yeah." Bart nodded. "The explosion was epic." He smiled.

"Ok, you were in charge of getting the records out." Chloe reminded him. "You took boxes from the lab to hold the papers." Bart nodded slowly. "I need you to tell me about the boxes."

Bart frowned, he'd been following her up to that point. "Ok, they were squarish in shape, made of cardboard, built to hold things." Chloe glared at him. "I'm sorry they were boxes, what do you want to know?"

"Where in the lab did you get them? Were they in the trash? Was there stuff already in them that you had to dump out?"

"They were just sitting there on a shelf in the supply closet." Bart said. "It was the easiest thing I found in that place. I turn around and there were the boxes. Finding the tape to put them together, that was the hard part."

"They weren't put together yet?" Chloe asked. "They were flat?" Bart nodded. Chloe smiled and turned back to the computer.

Bart looked at Oliver. "Can I go back to bed now?" Oliver nodded at him. He headed back up the stairs and passed AC and Victor on the way down.

"What's up?" Oliver asked them.

"Your coffee pots in the trashcan." AC told Chloe.

"And there's no water in your bathroom." Victor said.

"You have your very own bathroom across the hall with your very own water don't you?" Chloe asked. "Also a state of the art coffee pot?" She never looked up from her monitor.

"Well yeah but Oliver bought it so it's strangely complicated and we don't know how to work it.." AC said. "What are you doing?"

"She's working. It's a novel concept you should try it sometime." Oliver told them and grabbed a twenty out of his pocket. "Go get some coffee." He said to AC then turned to Victor. "And why don't you just use your own bathroom?"

"I don't have to go to the bathroom." Victor looked at Oliver as if he were crazy and walked over to the Chloe.

Oliver just shook his head. "Then why did you…never mind."

Victor looked closer at the computer screen. "San Antonio? We took care of that place a few months ago didn't we?"

Something came out of the printer and Chloe grabbed it. She scanned down the list then threw her fists in the air and spun around doing an impromptu dance.

"What is that?" Victor watched Chloe in astonishment as she chanted "I found it" over and over.

"I think that would a victory dance." Oliver said cautiously.

"You bet your ass it is." Chloe smiled at him. "Gas up your plane and get the castle ready, cause tomorrow's gonna be Friday baby." She reached up and kissed Oliver square on the lips then turned and ran back up the stairs.

"Where are you going?" Oliver laughed at her retreating form.

"We gotta go, I found it." She called over her shoulder.

"Found what exactly?" Victor asked. "And what was with that kiss?"

"I'll explain everything when it's Friday." Oliver told him. "Go get Bart up, we've got work to do."

************

Chloe checked the building again with the binoculars and noted the time the Guards passed by the front entrance. She passed them to Oliver. "Explain to me again why we're here?" He asked Chloe.

"The boxes that Bart found were shipping boxes. So I cross referenced every place the San Antonio lab shipped to with the names from Lois' list."

"What list?" AC asked confused and they ignored him.

"I found a match, every week the lab in San Antonio sent four boxes of what they said were office supplies to Macon Industries which is a dummy corporation that LutherCorp filters millions of dollars into, which we knew from Lois' list, but we didn't have an address because they never registered with the Better Business Bureau."

"So you got the address from the shipping information out of San Antonio." Oliver followed the story.

"And here we are." Chloe smiled.

"By why?" Bart asked. "I understand how you found this place. Well not really but feel free to not try and explain it again. But why are we here?"

"I don't know." Chloe shrugged.

"Are we looking for something?" Victor asked.

"I don't know." Chloe shrugged.

"Do you know anything?" AC asked.

"I know that we've got six minutes until those guards come back." Chloe motioned for them to follow her. The guys all sighed and followed Chloe to the entrance. She motioned for Victor to take care of the door and they stood around impatiently waiting.

"Freeze." A voice said from behind them and Chloe cursed turning around. "Step away from the door."

They all put their hands in the air. "Any ideas?" Oliver asked out of the corner of his mouth. Chloe shook her head and he nodded. "Look this is all a terrible misunderstanding." He took a step forward and Chloe heard the crack of the shot before she saw the bullet.

When people say that in intense situations time slows down, Chloe always thought they were crazy or just in shock, until she experienced it herself. She saw Bart out of the corner of her eye, moving agonizingly slow and she knew instinctively that wasn't right. Bart only moved slow when it was his turn to do the dishes or bath time, not when people were shooting. She could see each and every one of his foot falls and only realized that it was her perception that was off and not Bart's speed when she saw the bullet enter Oliver's chest before Bart was even in front of her. Time snapped back into place as blood sprayed all over Chloe's face. Bart became nothing more than a blur, disarming the guard as Victor took him down. Oliver stumbled backwards and slammed into Chloe, dragging the both of them to the ground.

"Help me." Chloe called out to AC who pulled Oliver off of her. "Lay him down." She pulled her hair out of her face and took a deep breath. "No, oh God." She put pressure on the wound, willing her power to work but it had been unreliable at best since the whole thing with Brainiac. "Please work, now, I just need you to work now." She cried.

"Chloe." AC knelt down next to her. "We've got to call an ambulance."

She nodded as Oliver gasped and coughed. "No ambulance." He shook his head. "Can't explain."

"Oliver I can't heal you." Chloe held up her hands. "It's not working, I just can't."

"No hospital." He coughed then his eyes closed.

"Chloe?" Victor asked. "What do we do?"

"I don't…" She realized that everyone was looking to her for the next step, that she had just become the defacto leader. "Ok." She stood up and took a deep breath. "I got this." She pulled out her phone and realized her hands were shaking so badly that she couldn't dial the first time. She calmed herself and dialed again. "Clark…" She turned around and explained what happened. Thirty seconds later he was there, staring down at the bloody body of Oliver Queen. "I couldn't call an ambulance, no one can know we were here."

"He was shot Chloe, there are going to be questions either way."

"I know that, but please, just…" Chloe begged with her eyes. It was rare that Chloe ever took advantage of Clark's abilities, and even rarer that he had a chance to help her so he didn't argue, he just picked Oliver up and sped off.

"Come on." Chloe lead the guys back to the car and drove to Metropolis. "Not you." She put a hand on Bart's chest. "I need you to get the green file out of my bottom desk drawer and bring it to the hospital."

"Yeah." Bart nodded slowly.

When they got to the hospital, Clark had already dropped Oliver off and he'd been dragged into surgery. "They won't tell me anything, they aren't going to tell you anything." Clark told her. "I tried to explain that he didn't have any family but…"

"Don't worry." Chloe smiled sadly at him. "I've got it covered." Bart sped in a few seconds later holding out the green file and Chloe walked up to the counter. The nurse looked over the file for a minute then called a doctor over.

"What's going on?" Bart asked.

"We don't know." AC said as the doctor talked to Chloe for a few more minutes. She nodded and walked to the guys taking shaky breaths.

"He's in bad shape." Chloe explained. "The bullet hit him in just the right spot to cause maximum damage apparently. It tore through his bowels and punctured a lung. There are bleeding issues and his kidney's are failing."

"What's the prognosis?" Victor asked.

"Not good." Chloe said, tears falling from her eyes. "They won't know for sure until he gets out of surgery but the doctor said that could take up to five hours."

"What do we do?" Bart asked her.

"We wait." Chloe walked over to a chair and sat down.

"How did you…" Clark looked over at the nurse. "How did you get them to tell you all that?"

Chloe passed him the green folder and he looked in it. "Medical Power of Attorney?"

"We did it a few weeks ago." Chloe wiped her tears, but it didn't help, more kept falling. "We knew that if anything happened, one of us would need to be able to take over, medically." She sniffed. "Oliver has one for me and the two of us have joint power for AC, Victor, and Bart. I never thought we'd have to use it, much less two weeks after we did it."

Clark stared at Chloe for a second and realized just how much he'd lost in the past few weeks. He thought that having Chloe work for Oliver might put a strain on their relationship, that they might not be as close as they once were but he just realized how true that was. The fact that Oliver has legal control over Chloe medically, the fact that Chloe never asked or even thought of Clark. "He'll be fine." Clark put an arm around Chloe and it was almost like he was giving her permission to let go. She broke down, sobbing into his shoulder and even as he tried to comfort her, he couldn't help but think there was something he was missing here. There was something going on with Oliver and Chloe that he didn't fully understand yet.

Five hours later Bart was falling asleep when Chloe jumped to her feet and ran to the hallway. They looked up and saw the doctor walking slowly through the doors. Before she could ask him a question he shook his head slowly. Chloe fell to the floor, the air sucked right out of her as her muscles and bones turned to jelly. "No." She shook her head. "No that's not right, that can't be right." Chloe whispered.

"I'm so sorry for your loss." The Doctor said sadly. He explained that there were just too many complications from the gunshot wound and they did all they could do but it just wasn't enough. Chloe didn't hear any of that though, it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. Not in a world where Chloe was driven to the brink of insanity, living the day over and over again, trying so hard to do everything right, trying so hard to save a man who brought nothing to the world except for pain and suffering, who brought Chloe nothing but pain and suffering, only to lose someone like Oliver in the crossfire.

"The police will be here in a few minutes." The doctor said awkwardly.

"Police?" Clark asked.

"It's standard in any case with a shooting." He said. "I'm sorry, again."

The Doctor walked away. "Victor." Clark looked over at him concerned and he snapped out of whatever trance he'd been in.

"I know." He seemed to recover suddenly, slipping his arms under Chloe and lifting her up. "We have to go." He explained to her.

"No." Chloe shook her head. "No we can't just leave him here, we can't leave him here alone."

"The police are coming Chloe and we don't have anything to tell them." Victor explained to her slowly. "We have to go."

"He'll be all alone." Chloe argued.

"We'll come back for him." Victor said. "We'll figure something out tomorrow."

Chloe suddenly looked over at Victor startled as if just waking up. "Tomorrow?" She asked slowly. "Tomorrow." She whispered to herself and then she was just gone. She wasn't sobbing anymore, she wasn't doing anything but staring blankly ahead, a strange expression of hope and grief in her eyes.

"Let's go." Victor said softly pulling Chloe out of the hospital.

*******

"Do you think she's ok?" AC asked. When they got back to Chloe's apartment they sat her on the couch. She was still pretty out of it, mumbling to herself and staring at the wall.

"I don't think any of us are ok." Victor pointed out downing his second glass of scotch.

"No, I know but I think there's really something wrong." AC looked over at Chloe again who was still mumbling to herself as Bart wiped the blood off her hands.

"What is she saying?" Victor asked.

"Start over." AC told him. "She just keeps saying "start over". Over and over again."

"Chloe?" Bart wiped the last of the blood off her hands. "I'm going to clean your face now." He brought the rag up to her cheek as she opened her eyes and frowned. She squeezed them shut again.

"Start over, come on, start over." She whispered.

"Chloe." Victor walked over to her. "Chloe, look we're all upset…" She turned to him suddenly.

"It's ok." She smiled sadly at him through her tears. "It'll be ok."

"Yeah it will but…"

"Just wait until midnight." She told him. "Then he'll be back."

"Chloe." Clark chimed in. "He's not coming back. He's dead."

"No, he'll be back tomorrow. Lex died today, he was poisoned at lunch, I forgot about the waiter, so he'll be back." She told them. "He'll be back after midnight." They all looked at each other confused. "He'll be back." Chloe assured them before closing her eyes. "Start over, start over, start over." She mumbled again.

"Someone should call Lois." AC said. "It'll be on the news soon, she shouldn't find out like that, and I think Chloe needs some help."

"I got it." Clark said.

Lois got there three hours later and Victor tried to explain what happened but since he wasn't completely sure what happened in the first place. All he could say was that Oliver had been shot and now he was dead and it seemed like Chloe had gone crazy. "She thinks he's coming back?" Lois asked. "She said he was coming back after midnight?"

"I know, but she won't explain what that means." Victor said.

"I don't understand what happened. I don't understand what you guys were doing there. Why was she was even with you?" Lois took the scotch that Victor handed to her then hung her head as something occurred to her. "She was working for him." Lois realized. "Oliver was the new mystery boss wasn't he?" AC nodded.

"Moment of truth huh?" Bart asked walking in the kitchen as Clark took his turn trying to get through to Chloe. They all turned to him confused. "One minute to midnight." He nodded to the clock.

"You do know he's not really coming back don't you?" AC asked him.

"She seems pretty sure of it." Bart pointed out. "And stranger things have happened."

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm pretty sure that Chloe's gone crazy." Victor snapped. "Which trust me I understand the inclination towards insanity because I'm about one drink away from losing it myself."

"Calm down." Bart held up his hand.

"He saved my life." Victor pointed out. "If it weren't for him, I'd probably be…I don't even want to think of where I'd be."

"We know." AC assured him. "He did the same for us."

"Ten seconds." Bart said quietly and they all turned to the clock, then to Chloe who had her eyes pressed closed as tight as she could.

"Start over, start over, start over, start over." Her voice was louder now, more desperate, pleading when the clock chimed midnight.

******************

Author's Note: I know I'm kind of evil for leaving it like that. I could be mean and hold the next chapter ransom for reviews but truth is, it still needs to be tweaked a little and I'll post it as soon as it's readyy. (I just finished up a big project at work so I have more free time on my hands).


	9. Chapter 9

**October 16, 2008 (Day 157)**

Chloe took a deep breath and opened her eyes. He wasn't there. He wasn't sitting on the coffee table like he had been for the past 70 odd days. She let out a strangled sob. Something had gone wrong and it didn't make any sense. She knew it was still Thursday but every time Lex died he'd come back when the day started over so where the hell was Oliver. "That's not fair." Chloe whispered. "It's not fair." She screamed out, shoving the coffee table over, breaking the legs off. She stood up and threw all of the items on the hall table to the ground.

She stared up in the vague direction of heaven. "What?" Chloe threw her arms up. "Did you not think I was in this? Was I not doing enough? Was I not doing it good enough you had to punish me? Did you think taking him away would make me work harder?" She grabbed the lamp on the side table and swung it at the tv, shattering it. "Well guess what, that's not going to work. I quit. I'll sit in this room for a million Thursdays and do absolutely nothing until you bring him back." She took a breath. "Do you hear me? Bring him back." She swung the lamp hard and let it fly at the sliding glass patio door, smashing the window as she fell to her knees sobbing.

"If you didn't like the way I decorated you could have just told me." Chloe sucked in a deep breath and turned her head, pulling herself to her feet. Oliver was standing in the doorway holding two Starbucks cups. "Coffee?" He asked her innocently

"Oliver?" She asked quietly.

"Yeah." He nodded.

"You're alive?" She asked him.

"Yeah." He said the relief evident in his voice.

"Put the coffee down." She said so seriously that he set the cups on the counter and she launched herself at him with such force she knocked him back and he realized if he'd still been holding the coffee they'd have both been covered in it.

When Chloe pulled away she slapped him. "Where the hell were you?"

"Getting you coffee." Oliver pointed to the cup on the bar.

"Ok, when you die, then come back to life, you don't waste time getting coffee when there are people out there who think you're dead." Chloe told him.

"The traffic was bad and I wanted to make sure you didn't turn on the coffee pot." Oliver pointed out. "But I promise, the next time I die, I'll call you first thing."

"You call, you run, you steal a freaking bike if you have to, you don't make me wait." He pulled her into another hug. "Don't ever do that again." She mumbled into his chest as her fingers clutched at his jacket.

"Promise." He whispered into her hair as he kissed her forehead. They stood there for a good ten minutes just clutching to each other when they heard a cough from behind them and turned to see the guys standing there, staring at the mess confused.

"Everything ok?" Victor asked cautiously.

"Everything is great." Chloe smiled whipping tears from her face and pulling away from Oliver. She walked over and surprised Victor by hugging him too. "Oliver's alive, it's a brand new day and I figured it out." She hugged Bart then AC.

"Ok, good, that's great." AC nodded patting her on the back. "Is there coffee?"

"No." Chloe smiled and pulled away. "But we're working on that."

"Well call me when you figure it out." AC turned back to the bedroom as Bart and Victor started cleaning up the mess in the livingroom.

"So how do you want to do this?" Oliver asked her. "Do we go in again? Maybe wait until dark?"

"No." Chloe said. "I rushed in there last time and you got shot, you died. I'm not going in again until we know everything there is to know about that building." Oliver was ready to protest but there was something in her eyes, in her voice that let him know how much his death had truly shaken her and even though she'd put the smile on her face, she was no where near ok.

"Yeah, ok." Oliver said. "I'll help clean this up, you go do what you need to do and we'll meet up later downstairs to work out a plan."

"I'm really glad you're not dead." Chloe said as he grabbed a broom. "I'm not sure what I would have done if you…"

"I'm glad I'm not dead too." Oliver smiled at her.

"Yeah well, you owe me a trip to Queen Island." She joked trying to break the tension.

"It's not called that." He rolled his eyes at her.

"It should be called that. You own it, isn't that one of the perks of owning an island, that you get to name them after yourself?" She smiled.

"I didn't discover it Chloe, it had a name when I bought it." She looked at him expectantly. "I can't remember it right now."

"You don't even know the name of your very own island." Chloe scoffed. "If I had my own island I guarantee you I'd remember it's name." She walked out of the apartment. They had a lot of work to do.

**October 16, 2008 (Day 162)**

"Ok." Chloe was practically jumping from foot to foot, a bundle of nerves. "I want two, I repeat two lookouts at all times."

"Yeah, we know you told us like four hundred times." Bart said.

"And if I want to I'll tell you four hundred more." Chloe snapped at him. "We don't know what we're walking into there. We've spent the last five days going over every scrap of evidence we could find on this place which isn't a lot, in fact, it's barely anything. We've got no internal layout, we've got no security manifest, we've got no schematics, we know nothing except that there are guards there that like to shoot people."

"How exactly do we know that?" AC asked confused.

"We just do." Chloe closed her eyes. "Two lookouts. Please."

"Ok." Victor nodded. "Two lookouts."

"Thank you." She took a deep breath. She wasn't leaving anything to chance this time, they weren't coming in haphazardly. They were all suited up, geared up, and as ready as they ever could be. "Let's go." They waited for the guards to change shifts and moved out. Victor opened the front door and they cleared the hall before going in. When they realized they were safe they all stopped confused. The door opened into three hallways, one straight ahead, one to the left and one to the right. Everyone turned to Chloe, this was her show after all.

"What do we do now?" Oliver asked.

Chloe opened her mouth and then shut it. "Ok, let's work this from the beginning." She started pacing. "The connections. The boxes and the list from Lois led us to this place." She recapped. "And now we're here and…." She looked up at Oliver. "I don't know."

"Was there anything else?" AC asked. "Any other clues?"

"Just that stupid Haiku." Chloe shook her head.

"What Haiku?" Victor asked.

"Straight in through the light, Lost geese fly against the wind, Orange plastic tears." Chloe recited the poem from memory. "Bad poetry, definitely. Clue?" She shook her head. "I don't know."

"Did you say, straight in through the light?" Bart asked.

"Yeah?" Chloe nodded.

"I say we go that way." Bart pointed down the hallway straight ahead.

They all turned to look where Bart was pointing and Oliver shook his head. "Straight in through the light." The hallways to the left and right of them were relatively well lit. But the door at the end of the hall in front of them had a very bright light shining from underneath it. So bright it formed a sort of halo around the door, seeping through every inch of the door frame.

"I'll take it." Chloe shrugged walking ahead of them, her eyes constantly searching for a guard. They got to the door and Chloe opened it. It swung forward easily and they stepped through. The light was bright at first but their eyes adjusted quick enough. There were rows and rows of plants. Some in glowing green soil, some of the plants themselves were glowing. The bright light was hundreds and hundreds of sun lamps. "His own little meteor greenhouse." Chloe looked around.

"Is this what we're here for?" AC asked.

"I don't think so." Chloe shook her head.

"Where to from here?" Victor looked around intrigued.

"Straight through." Chloe nodded at the door ahead of them. They walked through that door and were confronted by a dead end, a hallway on either side of them.

"Left or right?" Bart asked and Chloe shrugged.

"What was the rest of the poem?" AC asked.

"Uh, Straight in through the light. Lost geese fly against the wind." Chloe recited. Almost as if on cue they heard a loud creaking and then saw the fan at the end of the hallway turn on to the right of them. They could feel the air rush toward them. "Against the wind?" She asked the others.

"Hey we're just following you." Victor pointed out to her.

Chloe turned to Oliver who shrugged. "Let's go against the wind." He turned toward the fan and started walking. "I think the guys are pretty impressed with this whole thing but you know once we get to the fan that's it, it's a dead end."

"I'm hoping inspiration strikes before that happens." Chloe said. "I've been pulling rabbits out of my hat since we walked in the doors, and I have to say I'm finding myself very impressive but if I tank now it would look bad." Oliver laughed and Chloe froze, holding her arm out to stop everyone. "Hello inspiration." She pointed to the last door at the end of the hall and Oliver looked up. "Orange Plastic tears." Chloe smiled. They all looked at the small window at the top of the doorway, at the small orange window.

"Here we go." Oliver nodded for Victor to come forward and work his magic on the door lock. Victor walked up rubbing his hands together and then stopped. "No can do boss man."

"What do you mean? You're telling me there is a lock in this world you can't break?" Oliver asked confused.

"I can break it." Victor said. "But it'll take me a couple of hours." At their confused looks he tried to explain. "Look, the front door lock was easy, all I had to do was hack in and rewrite the programming to change the password to one that I had picked out and the door opens." AC and Bart exchanged a look that made it obvious they thought that sounded anything but easy. "This thing is way off line." He said. They all still looked confused. "I'm digital, it's analog." He told them. "I'm a Blue Ray and this thing is a Beta Max."

"You're not compatible?" Oliver asked.

"Nothing's compatible. Not a Mac, not a PC, not me. There is one program in that thing and that's the pass code, you can't change it, you can't bypass it, you just have to know it."

"Maybe I do." Chloe stepped forward. "Orange plastic tears." She smiled and pointed to the window. "Orange plastic, so what does 'tears' stand for? A standard number keypad has alphabetical counterparts, so tears would be…."

"83277." Victor smiled catching on. Chloe punched in the numbers and nothing happened. "The number wasn't long enough." Victor said confused.

"Add plastic." Bart said. They turned to look at him. "The window's glass, not plastic." Bart tapped it. "Try 'plastic tears'."

Chloe looked over at Victor who worked it out in his head. "752784283277" Chloe punched in the number and the lock disengaged, the door swung open.

"Holy crap." Chloe turned to look at Oliver with a surprised expression on her face. "That shouldn't have worked. How did that work? There's no way that should have ever worked."

"It did." Oliver said, his own expression surprised.

"You really are just flying by the seat of your pants here aren't you?" Victor smiled at her slightly. "You have no idea what you're doing?"

"None." Chloe smiled at him. "But I'm doing it fantastically." She joked. They all laughed with her when they were interrupted.

"It's about freaking time." A voice said from inside the room and the whole team moved forward to see a young man, probably no older than Chloe pacing back and forth in a glass cell, a girl, no a woman, probably twice his age, sitting on the barren floor beside him. "I cannot believe how many days I had to rewind before you figured it out."

"You?" Chloe stepped forward. "You did that?"

"What you thought maybe it was God?" He smirked at her. "Of course it was me."

"I…how…why…" Chloe couldn't seem to find the words, for 162 days she'd been trying to figure out how to stop the rewind from happening but she never once even considered why it was happening, or even who was making it happen.

"I was told that you were the only one that could do it. The only one that would make the connections and find us." He looked at the girl on the floor next to him and snorted. "I can't say I'm impressed with your work so far."

"Hey!" Chloe snapped. This guy had put her through hell for a little over five months and he had the gall to complain about her. "That is it. I have lived every possible outcome of this day twice over, I have been arrested, I've been locked up in the loony bin, I've been in car accidents, bus accidents and one very surreal boating accident. I've gotten beat up, stabbed, and shot multiple times, I've broken in places, kidnapped people, and almost had myself convinced that I was going mad and none of this was really happening. I've been busting my ass for the past 162 days trying to figure this thing out so don't even start on me."

"What is she talking about?" Victor asked Oliver.

"I promise I'll explain everything…."

"When it's Friday." They all finished for him. Chloe had been saying that all morning, every time they asked a question.

"Yeah what the hell does that mean?" Bart asked confused.

"You think this has been a picnic for me?" The guy asked. "You don't think I've relived the same 162 days that you have, we both have? Only ours never changed, not once, not even a little. We wake up in our room, get moved to this cell, then we get carted off for a round of very painful medical and psychological tests, then we get put back in this cell and start the whole freaking day over again."

Chloe's mouth snapped shut and she looked throughouly chastised. "Ok." Oliver stepped forward. "Maybe we should get you two out of here and then have the "whose had it worse off" argument? Sound like a plan?"

"Works for me." Bart raised his hand.

"Victor." Oliver said moving aside so he could get to the door lock.

"This one I can do, give me some time though." Victor opened up the key pad on the wall and stared at the wires like a normal person would stare a large juicy steak.

"Explain to me how this works." Chloe said. "We've got some time and I want some answers. Chloe Sullivan by the way, I guess you knew that."

"Yeah." The guy scoffed. "Sam, Sam Walter, that's Claire Peterson." Claire raised her hand and waved weakly. "It's a long story."

"I like stories." Chloe sat down on the edge of the lab table.

"I've been here for five years." Claire stood up. "Five very long years."

"What are you in for?" Bart asked.

"I'm sorry I don't understand…" Claire looked at him confused.

"Your power." Chloe clarified. "What's your power?"

"I can see, actually see, connections." Claire explained.

"What does that mean?" Oliver asked her. "How do you see connections?"

"It's like a string." Claire said. "A string that only I can see, connecting things together, or people. You two…" Claire nodded to Chloe then Oliver. "There's a dark red string that sort of comes from your chest and connects to his." Chloe looked down at her chest, as if she tried hard enough she could see the string that Claire was talking about. "There are more." Claire said. "You've got blue strings to each of them." Claire nodded at the guys.

"Why is his red and ours blue?" Bart asked a little annoyed.

"Oh." Claire smiled. "That's easy. The colors are different for different types of relationships. Blue is for friendship and family." Bart smiled proudly at that. "Red is for love." Then he frowned and Chloe and Oliver both avoided looking at each other as Bart turned to them.

"So you see connections." Chloe coughed.

"Yeah." Claire said. "Not just between people either. Between things, places, even events. I never lost a set keys, if anyone ever lost a set of keys I could find them, just follow the string."

"Ok, but how does he fit into all this?" Chloe nodded at Sam. "Sam, Sam, the rewind man?"

"I brought him into this." Claire looked over at him apologetically.

"I've told you a million times, not your fault. Lex already had me, as far as I'm concerned, one secret lab prison is just as good as another." Sam smiled at her.

"How did you bring him here?" Oliver asked.

"When I first got here I could only see a few connections. It was sort of about proximity, if two people were in the room with me, I could see their strings. The longer I was here, the more tests that Lex put me through, they changed. I'm not sure if my powers grew, or if I just learned to use them better, but suddenly I could do more, so much more."

"Like what?" Chloe asked.

"I see your strings, the ones to them, but I see others too." Claire thought for a second. "There is a blue one that I can follow all the way to Metropolis, all the way to the Daily Planet, to your cousin Lois, then I can take one of hers and follow it, all the way to London, to Lucy. I could follow Lucy's to another person, then another, then another, and I could probably even make it back to Metropolis."

"Like six degrees of Kevin Bacon?" Bart asked.

Claire looked over at him very confused for a second then smiled. "Anyway, one day I started seeing not only the connections that were already there but the ones that could be there, the possible connections."

"Possible connections, what does that mean?" Oliver asked her confused.

"Every event, every moment, every choice you make has consequences, which lead to more choices, more moments which have their own consequences, and so on and so on."

"The ripple effect." Chloe offered.

"Exactly. Every day you change one thing to change something else."

"Like stopping the bike accident, lets Lex be on time for his lunch, which makes him die earlier in the day." Chloe caught on.

"Yes." Claire smiled realizing that this was going to be so much easier to explain because of what Chloe had been through. "It's like that, only you were seeing cause and effect, one event at a time, I see every possible outcome of every possible cause of every possible event."

"Every possible outcome?" Bart asked impressed.

"This is how she explained it to me." Sam piped up. "Say you ask a girl on a date." He looked at Chloe. "Or a boy for you. There are two options, two possible outcomes of that choice, she, or he, says yes or no." They all nodded. "If she, or he, says yes, the likely progression of the night is that you go out, you eat diner, you come home, maybe you go back to her place. If she says no, that's no longer your night. Instead you may stay home, eat take out, watch a movie, play a video game. You might go out with your friends instead, you might go out anyway, just by yourself, meet a completely different girl." Sam turned to Claire. "The moment that question is asked, that yes or no, Claire sees the outcomes laid out in front of her like a map. She doesn't assume how the night will go she knows. She knows how the night changes if you order the shrimp instead of the beef, if you order the white wine instead of the red, if you take Fourth instead of Third, she sees all of it."

"Whoa." AC finally spoke up. "How are you like not crazy?"

Claire laughed harshly. "Who says I'm not?" She smiled at him. "I probably would be if I couldn't turn it off, but I don't see it all the time, only when I look for it."

"So you can see every outcome of this day, everything that could happen, every possible change, every possible outcome." Chloe asked. "But there's got to be an infinite amount of possibilities."

"You'd think." Claire shrugged. "But surprisingly some things are set in stone. Some things, some events, no matter what you change, no matter what path you took to get there, some things will always happen. Call it fate, call it destiny, call it strawberry jam, I don't understand this thing anymore than you guys."

"And Sam?" Chloe asked, getting her back on track.

"I didn't tell Lex about that part of my powers because the first time it happened, it was a bad day. I hadn't had any new progress in a couple of months so Lex was doing a lot of tests and I was thinking as hard as I could about a way to get out there, a way to escape. Then suddenly I saw Sam, as clear as day in my mind and I knew, I knew that he was the key, but I didn't know how. It takes a while for my powers to progress, even longer for me to get to the point where I can control them so I kept it to myself, I worked hard, I figured it out and the next time I saw Sam, I followed the connections from Sam to my escape and I realized what the two of us together could do, if we could combine our powers."

"How did you get him here?"

"He was being held at another one of Lex's facilities, out in California. One day I told Lex about a new power that I'd gotten, that I could see how something happened after the fact, which is true, but not the whole story. I had him stage a scene and then he would bring me in and I could tell him what happened. Like he would bring me into a room with a broken lamp and spilled coffee. Most people's first instinct would probably be break in right? Only I followed the connections and saw that in actuality a cat knocked over the coffee, freaked, tried to run away, slammed into the lap and there you go. Then I made an offhanded comment that the information would be much more useful if you could go back in time."

"Bet Lex jumped on that huh?" Victor snorted.

"Two days later Sam was here."

"Claire explained her plan to me, she would use her power to figure out what needed to happen in order for us to get out and who could make it happen and I would rewind the day until it did." Sam explained. "She knew right away that it was you." He said to Chloe. "But it wasn't supposed to be today."

"What do you mean?" Oliver looked at her confused. "It wasn't supposed to be today?"

"I mean that the original plan was for three months from now. You were going to find some shipping manifests from another lab, put a few other things together and find the lab. Then we had to move it up."

"Why?" AC asked.

"Because today Lex dies." Sam explained.

"That I know." Chloe sighed.

"But Lex has an order, on the event of his death, all non essential research is to be stopped, and all data and evidence destroyed, except for a select few labs and projects."

"Let me guess you guys weren't the select few." Victor scoffed.

"I'm sorry but how did you not see that one coming?" Chloe asked.

"All the time things are changing, events are evolving and most of the changes aren't that important but every now and then you get a wrench thrown in somewhere and everything get's thrown off kilter."

"What threw it off kilter?" Chloe frowned.

"That I've been trying to figure since it happened. It's bugging the hell out of me that's for sure." Claire frowned.

"Ok, so Lex's future changed suddenly and your plan had to be adapted and I end up living Thursday over 180 times." Chloe sighed.

"It had to be today, and I had to keep doing it until you got it because for us there was no Friday."

"I get it." Chloe nodded. "I'm not going to say I like it. So you rewind the day and Claire tells you the connections?"

"Is that how I got through? How I remembered the rewind?" Oliver asked.

"That was a fluke actually." Sam said sheepishly. "You see I pull people through the rewind by sort of grabbing onto their auras I guess you could say and that day when I pulled Chloe through, the two of you were….you know and your auras were kind of intertwined at the moment so you got pulled through too."

"Oh." Oliver nodded.

"What does he mean by 'you know'?" Bart looked over at Oliver. "What were the two of you doing intertwining your auras?"

"Bart." AC slapped him in the back of his head.

"Anyway, I wasn't going to pull you through the next time but Claire told me to, told me you could help so…and here we are." Sam said.

"Got it." Victor smiled as the glass door slid open. Sam and Claire walked out of the cell and smiled, hugging each other.

"Let's get the hell out of here huh?" Oliver offered.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." An all too familiar voice said from behind him. They turned to see Lex standing there with a satisfied smile on his face. "Why don't you all just back away from the door and put your hands where I can see them." Nobody moved and he pulled a gun from his waist and aimed it at them.

"Well this is just perfect." Chloe sighed throwing her hands in the air.

"It really is." Lex smiled. "I've got the whole team here, un masked at that." Chloe didn't even realize it but at some point during Claire's story they'd all taken off their glasses, dropped their hoods, gotten comfortable. Lex looked at Chloe. "Miss Sullivan, why am I not surprised to see you here with…well now, is that really Oliver Queen?" Lex's smile got larger. "I'm not easily surprised Oliver but I have to admit, I did not see this one coming."

Chloe was desperately trying to think of a way out of this one when she heard Claire behind her, whispering in Victor's ear. "The door lock." She said. "Can you short it out?"

Victor nodded subtly and moved slightly closer to the wires he'd just unplugged. Chloe moved forward to distract Lex. "You really don't see much coming do you?" Chloe asked. "I mean honestly you are the man who has driven twice off the same bridge and into a lake. If you can't even see the lake coming…"

He smacked her in the side of the head with the gun and Oliver moved forward just as Victor got the wires right. He shorted out the lock which cut the power to the building. The darkness was enough to distract Lex and Oliver shoved him to the ground, the gun went skidding across the floor. Everyone stood still as the backup generator kicked in. "Gun?" Oliver asked pulling Lex to his feet.

"I've got it." Sam said from the other side of the room and everyone relaxed.

"Hand it over." Oliver held out his hand and passed Lex off to AC and Bart.

"I can't do that." Sam shook his head, still staring at the gun. He lifted it and aimed it at Lex.

"What are you doing man?" Victor asked him.

"I'm killing Lex Luther." Sam cocked the gun.

"No." Chloe stepped forward. "I can't let you do that."

"You can't?" Everyone, including Lex asked almost simultaneously.

"No, I spent 162 days, 162 days that you made me relive practically killing myself, watching people that I love die, to keep him alive and it never worked, and I'm not going to let you just shoot him while I'm standing right here." Chloe held her hands out and stepped in front of Lex.

"You still don't understand." Sam laughed manically. "It was never about Lex. It was never about saving Lex. It was about saving me, me and Claire. He died, every single day he died more than just the 162 days you relived, you can't change it, and you can't stop it." Sam said.

"No." Chloe shook her head.

"It's just his time to die, it's his day. No matter what happens that's never going to change, it's his fate or destiny or whatever. So I think that if it's going to happen either way, after everything I've been through I should get to do it personally." Sam cocked the gun.

"It doesn't work that way." Chloe said and then turned her attention to Claire. "Does it?" They all turned to look at her. "You flinched." Chloe explained. "When he said that no matter what Lex is going to die today, you flinched." Chloe took a small step forward. "You see the connections, you know, is that right?"

"I don't…" Claire looked between Chloe, Lex and Sam.

"Come on, you can see everything, you can see the bigger picture." Chloe told her. "If there's even one way, one thing that can stop him from dying you know it's not right, that it's not his day." Claire lowered her head. "I know what he did to you, trust me I really do and there's nothing that can change that or make it ok but this isn't right and you know it." Claire looked over at Sam apologetically.

"I'm sorry." Claire shook her head.

"There's a way." Chloe smiled relieved. "There's something that can save him isn't there?"

"No, you said he was going to die today." Sam looked over at Claire. "You said there was no way out."

"But don't you see, we've changed so much." Claire said. "All that rewinding, it changed things. It changed."

"No." Sam shook his head. "No, you said that they could change a million things and Lex would still die."

"There's one way." Claire corrected herself. "Just one, but there is a way."

"It's not his day to die." Chloe said.

"Yeah, it is." Sam fired off two shots, one right after the other and Chloe and Lex both fell to the ground within seconds of each other. Sam dropped the gun to the ground, astonished at what he'd done as Oliver fell to Chloe's side.

"Oh God." Claire backed away and Victor, AC, and Bart stared at Sam as if they weren't sure what they just saw actually happened. Sam seamed to realize what happened and headed for the door.

"Stop him." Oliver screamed but he didn't need to say anything, AC, Victor, and Bart were on him before he'd made it two steps, pulling him down to the ground and detaining him.

"Did you call an ambulance?" Bart asked.

Oliver just shook his head. "She's dead." He croaked out. "The shot went straight through her heart."

"No." Bart dropped down next to him and started CPR. Oliver let him for a few seconds before pulling him away.

"She's dead." He whispered. "Just stop please."

Bart nodded slowly as tears fell down his face. Oliver collapsed against the wall behind him deflated. Slowly he lifted his head up and looked at Sam as if he were just not seeing him for the first time. "Rewind." It was all he said, his eyes boring into Sam's, his voice dry, dead. "You can do that, you can rewind the day and she'll come back."

"No, I'm free now, I'm not going back into that room." Sam shook his head.

"We know you're here, we know where to go, we know what to do, we'll get you out again." Oliver told him. "Rewind the day."

"No." Sam said defiantly.

"She…" Oliver wiped his eyes and stood up. "She did everything, everything she could to help you even when she didn't know what she was doing and you're just going to let her die?" Sam didn't say anything. Oliver pulled the bow from his back, loaded an arrow and nodded at AC and Victor. "Stand him up." He said. They didn't move. "Stand him up." Oliver snapped. They pulled Sam to his feet and Oliver pulled the string back and aimed the arrow straight for Sam's head. "Rewind now."

Sam looked at Oliver for a second. "You're not going to shoot me."

"Try me." Oliver pulled the bow tighter.

Sam looked behind Oliver at Claire. "Tell me, is there any way he lets that arrow go?" She looked between Oliver and Sam then shook her head. "No." Sam smiled.

Oliver lowered the bow and AC, Victor, and Bart all sighed in relief. "Your right I'm not going to kill you." He put the bow and arrow away. "But I can move you from one prison to another." Oliver said.

"You put me in another cell and I just make you relive that day over and over. Relieve the day that your grief is so sharp it hurts to breath, to move." Sam challenged him. "Over, and over, and over again."

Oliver shook his head. "We've done our own studies on Meta's." He said. "Completely voluntarily of course, but we found out something. Did you know that in some stages of comas, the part of your brain that controls your powers just shuts off. If I was motivated enough I'm sure I could reproduce that." He smiled. "Put you under, take away your powers but leave you pretty much aware of your surroundings. So here's the way I see it. You can rewind the day, spend a few more hours in that prison back there, or you can come with me and spend the rest of your life as a prisoner in your own body." Sam looked over at Claire to see if Oliver would actually do what he was threatening. "You don't have to look at her to know I'm telling you the truth. You spent the last 162 days torturing the woman I loved and now you've killed her, try me." Oliver crossed his arms over his chest and the last of Sam' confidence seemed to leak out of him. "Good, now we're getting somewhere." He checked his watch. "Three more hours." He sounded relieved.

"We don't have to wait until midnight." Sam said. "I just did that because I was trying to give her as much time as I could."

"You can rewind now?" Oliver asked and Sam nodded. "Do it."

Sam looked back at his glass prison and sighed before nodding.

**October 16, 2008 (Day 163)**

Oliver's eyes shot open when the alarm on his bedside table went off. He slapped his hand on the button and the beeping switched to a morning radio program. "It's a beautiful day in Metropolis." The DJ called out as Oliver jumped out of the bed and grabbed his phone. "The sun is shining, the city is bustling and there isn't a single rain cloud in sight." Oliver had heard that DJ say those exact words 80 times and this was the only day he actually believed them. He heard his coffee pot start up at its pre-programmed time and he searched the room for something to wear. Chloe's cell phone kept ringing, no one was picking up so he tried Victors next. He found a pair of pants and a shirt and hopped around the room trying to pull them on with one hand holding the phone up to his ear. Victor wasn't answering either. He hung up and tried Bart's phone as he pulled on his shoes and headed for the door. Bart didn't answer and he didn't even bother trying AC as he got in the elevator and punched the button for the lobby.

The elevator ride to the lobby was the single longest one of his life and he'd stayed on the top floor of some of the tallest buildings in the world. He walked out to the street and headed for his car only to stop. Traffic, he'd forgotten about the traffic report. On his side of town every day for the past 80 days traffic had been at a standstill for forty five minutes. He could go for the bike but it was so bumper to bumper it would still take him a good thirty minutes to get out there. The Isis Foundation was only thirty blocks away and without thinking he took off down the street at a steady run, the only thing on his mind was making sure that when he walked into her apartment, Chloe was laying on the couch, sound asleep and perfectly alive. He started to feel a stitch in his side around block 15 and realized he needed to start jogging again.

Oliver rounded the corner for Chloe's street and pushed the final two blocks. When he got to the door he had to stop to catch his breath and had a small freak out when he couldn't find his keys. He wasted two minutes searching his pocket's until he found them and another two trying to open the door, his hands were shaking so hard. He took the steps to the apartments two at a time and had his key ready when he got to her door. He stopped, took a deep breath and unlocked it stepping inside. His eyes immediately zoomed in on the couch and he felt all the air go out of him in one single breath. She wasn't there. She wasn't lying on the couch, her head titled softly to the side, her hair slightly tangled from tossing and turning in her sleep. Her arm wasn't dangling over the edge of the couch, barely grazing the top of the rug as she slept like it had been for the past 80 days when he walked in her apartment.

The door opened behind him but he barely registered it until he heard a familiar voice and turned around slowly. "Ok, that's enough." Chloe screamed. "I thought it was sweet when you woke me up, the three of you hovering over me worried. I thought it was kind of cute when you followed my every movement around the apartment. But all three of you following me across the hall to use the bathroom and then waiting for me outside the door, it's just plain crazy." She snapped at AC, Victor, and Bart who hadn't allowed more than two feet between them and her since she woke up. "Five feet, that's the new rule." She made a motion with her hands and they each took a step back. "Stay." She commanded them and then turned to see Oliver standing in front of her. The expression on his face was unreadable. She took a step toward him and she heard all three of the guys take a step toward her. "They're like puppies, really stupid puppies that don't understand the simple command." She told Oliver shaking her head.

His face split into a huge grin and he scooped her up in his arms and crushed her to his chest. Chloe closed her eyes and sunk into his arms as he pulled away to stare at her for a minute before he kissed her. It wasn't a normal kiss, it was borne out of desperation and an utter and complete since of relief and he poured everything he had into it. He wanted to show her how felt about her, all the things he hadn't managed to verbalize in the past few months. He wanted it to say that he loved her and he couldn't live without her. He wanted it to tell her that he was crushed when he thought she was dead, that he wasn't sure he could have gone on alone if she hadn't come back to him and he wanted it to say that she could never leave him again because he just didn't work without her. He wanted to explain everything in that kiss and he did a pretty good job too. They pulled apart and just looked at each other for a minute, no words were exchanged, no explanations given and then Chloe just nodded. "Yeah." She told him. "Me too."

"Why didn't you answer your phone?" He asked her.

"I went next door for like twenty minutes to use the bathroom." Chloe said. "Didn't think I needed the phone."

Oliver glared at her. "What happened to your rule?" Chloe looked at him confused. "You said, when you die, then come back to life, you don't waste time getting coffee when there are people out there who think you're dead. You call, you run, you steal a freaking bike if you have to, you don't make me wait."

"Wow, you had that right almost word for word." Chloe smiled at him and he glared at her. "I figured you would do the calling and the running and if I also did the calling and the running, then we'd likely end up missing each other if I was running to the clock tower and you were running here, so I thought it best to stay put."

"Don't do it again ok?" Oliver asked her, just like she asked him the day before. Chloe nodded.

"Dude." Bart interrupted the tender moment in a way that only Bart can and when Chloe and Oliver turned to him he smiled. "It's Thursday again."

At Oliver's confused look Chloe smiled. "Oh yeah, they remember."

"So what's the plan?" Victor looked between Chloe and Oliver. "Are we really getting him out of there? Cause not for nothing but I'd just as soon let his ass rot in that place." AC and Bart nodded in agreement.

"I want this over with." Chloe shook her head. "Besides, he'll just start the day over again until we do something about it. And Claire's innocent in all this, she doesn't deserve it."

"So what are we going to do when we get him out?" Bart asked. "We're just gonna let him go?"

"What else can we do?" Oliver asked frustrated. "We lock him up, we're no better than Lex."

"How about we do what you said we would yesterday, or today, or whatever." Victor offered.

"What did you say yesterday?" Chloe asked confused. "For that matter, how did you get him to rewind? He was free and Lex was dead." She looked at Oliver more closely. "What did you say yesterday?"

"I said what I had to say to get you back." Oliver told her simply. "And I'd do it again in a heartbeat."

Chloe wanted to press the matter further, she really wanted to know what happened after she died but she could tell that the wound was still too fresh for him, to raw so she let it drop. "So we're not going to do anything to him?" Bart asked.

"No." Chloe shook her head. "Regardless of what happened yesterday, of what he's put us through, I think he's been punished enough don't you?" She looked at each of the guys in turn who all knew what it was like to be on the opposite side of the bars from Lex Luther. They nodded reluctantly and she smiled at them.

"Ok, so we're not going to lock him up or put him in a coma." Bart conceded.

"Put him in a coma?" Chloe repeated incredulously.

"So what do you say if, I mean what if accidently, while in the process of saving him, he should like, trip, over my foot, accidently of course." Bart offered.

"And on his way to the ground, what if his stomach you know, accidently slammed into my knee or something. Accidently." AC smiled.

"Then maybe, when I'm helping him off the ground, he hits his head on the corner of a table, or it slams into the wall." Victor added.

"Accidently of course?" Chloe smiled at her guys.

"No." Victor shook his head at her seriously.

"Just be discreet." Oliver told them and Chloe turned to look at him surprised. "He killed you Chloe." He defended himself. "I was thinking of accidently shooting an arrow in his general direction, like at his shoulder or in his foot."

"Foot definitely." AC said. "You can always sell an accidental foot shooting."

"Guys, seriously." Chloe laughed at all of them.

"Come on." Oliver turned to her. "You can't tell me that you don't want some sort of revenge on his guy? Even if it's something tiny, something that only you know about?" Chloe wrinkled her nose and Oliver laughed. "You have thought about it."

"I was thinking of maybe calling his mother." Chloe admitted.

"Oh." Bart, AC, and Victor each took a step back from Chloe as if she'd just said she was radioactive.

"Pulling out the mom card." AC winced. "That's harsh."

"You are truly and evil mastermind and I have much to learn from you." Bart affected a tiny bow and Chloe laughed.

"Ok, let's get this show on the road. The sooner we do this, the sooner its Friday." Oliver pointed out.

The third rescue attempt was infinitely more successful from the get go. They slipped through the front with practiced ease and headed straight for the lab as if they'd been there a hundred times before. Chloe punched in the door code and they all walked in the room together. Sam and Claire were sitting on the floor of the cell staring at the door and they scrambled to their feet when Chloe led the team in the room. "Oh thank God." Claire sighed in relief as Chloe nodded for Victor to unlock the door.

"You came back." Sam said meekly, his eyes looking anywhere but on Chloe, on the girl he'd murdered the day before.

"I promised." Oliver said stiffly. "Thank her though, cause if it was up to me, I'd live this day over forever if it meant you had to sit behind that door."

Sam finally reluctantly turned his attention on Chloe who was directing Bart to get any information from the computer that he could while AC raided the filing cabinets. "I'm sorry." He said after a minute. "I'm not that guy." He explained to her.

"That guy?" Chloe raised an eyebrow.

"That selfish guy who only cares about himself and uses other people and…"

"Kills other people?" Chloe offered.

"Yeah, and kills other people." He nodded. "I was desperate and I know it's no excuse and there's nothing I can do to make it up to you and I don't deserve your forgiveness or my freedom but…thanks."

"You're welcome." Chloe nodded at him at Victor finished his work and the cell door slid open.

"Let's get out of here yeah?" Sam smiled.

"Not so fast." Chloe shook her head. "We've still got to take care of this place." She turned to Bart, AC and Victor who nodded and left the room."

"What do you mean take care of it?" Claire asked.

"You'll see." Chloe smiled. They made their way outside the compound where Victor was piling up blindfolded and handcuffed guards at the perimeter. Ten minutes later the guys all stood on the out skirts of the lab as Chloe pulled a device out of her pocket. She thought for a second then turned to Sam and Claire. "You guys want to push this?"

Sam looked at Claire, who looked at the button, Chloe assumed using her powers to see what would happen, when she smiled. "Definitely." She nodded to encourage Sam that it was ok and they both pushed the button, then watched as the lab exploded right in front of them.

"Ok." Sam smiled watching the fire lick the sky. "That was awesome."

"Come on." Chloe turned and walked away, the guys following her, Claire and Sam following them.

************

"So what happens now?" Chloe asked them as she brought them into the Isis Foundation. "Where will you go?"

"Back to school." Sam shrugged. "I was in my third semester at UCLA when Lex took me. I think I'd like to finish."

"What about you?" She turned to Claire.

"I don't know." She shrugged. "I've been in that place for five years. I probably lost my job and my apartment. I've got no family so…I'm not sure. A hotel for now I guess and then I'll think of something."

"We'll worry about that tomorrow." Chloe said. "How about you guys take them upstairs." She asked Bart, AC, and Victor. "Maybe they want to shower, get a fresh change of clothes, order in some food, and watch a little TV."

"Right." Bart said suddenly. "You've been locked up for like five years huh? So you haven't watched television since like 2003? Oh God, you've never seen Hero's."

"What's Hero's?" Claire asked confused.

"It's a show, about people like us, only not as awesome." AC explained.

"It's ok, I've got all the episodes on DVD, don't worry."

"I really wasn't." Sam laughed.

"Oh, there's a girl on the show named Claire, and she's got powers too…not as cool as yours. Wait you know what a DVD is right?"

Claire looked at him like he was stupid. "We've been gone for five years, not five hundred."

"Right." He looked relieved. "I didn't know what I was going to do if I had to explain the internet to you."

"I guess I should probably get to work." Oliver groaned. "Seeing as how everyone's going to remember this day tomorrow."

"No, what you need to do is call a plumber and an electrician." She grabbed her bag.

"Where are you going?" Oliver asked her confused.

"I've still got work to do." She smiled. "I've got to stop Lois from getting arrested, I've got to pick up a new coffee pot." She looked pointedly at AC.

"Sorry." He mumbled. While Chloe had run out that morning to feed Julia's meter and stop the bike messenger Oliver had failed to stop AC from starting the coffee pot.

"There's one more thing." Sam told her as she reached the door. "Lex."

"Right." Chloe stopped and turned around. "I almost forgot." She looked between Claire and Sam. "So what do I have to do? Steal his spark plugs, call in a bomb threat, actually bomb something, that's not a deal breaker or anything, as you've seen, I'm pretty ok with the bombing of things."

"Nothing like that." Claire said sheepishly. "Actually, I have a feeling you're really not going to like this."


	10. Chapter 10

Chloe and Oliver stood across the street from Pino's. "I can't believe this." Chloe shook her head. "I can't believe, after everything we did, all the backward twisted ways we tried to save his ass and I have to poison him?" Chloe sighed in frustration. It was extremely simple in the end. Claire explained it all to Chloe who listened to the whole thing with a growing sense of disbelief.

The original killer, the waiter at Pino's, had never intended to murder Lex. The poison he slipped Lex was supposed to cause severe abdominal pain and probably diarrhea. He just wanted to hurt him, and maybe embarrass him a little. Only he'd screwed up and put the poison in his scotch which had an adverse effect and killed Lex instead. Claire explained that all Chloe had to do was allow the waiter to follow through with his original plan to poison Lex, poison him but not kill him. Lex would get taken to the hospital, probably spend a few hours huddled over a toilet, and then the rest of the day he'd spend at the police station giving a statement, and he'd be so frustrated and exhausted after all of that that he would just go straight home.

After voicing her disbelief, loudly and for quite some time Chloe calmed down and then worked out a plan. She found some clothes that matched the uniforms at Pino's, paid the bartender a thousand dollars to take a day's vacation and then waited behind the bar. When Lex got there she watched the waiter as Lex berated him and insulted him and Chloe saw it when the waiter reached that point where she could understand him wanting to teach Lex a lesson. He walked over to the bar and put in the table's drink order. "That guy seems like a real asshole." Chloe said as she fixed the scotch, putting 1 part scotch to about 9 parts water to be on the safe side.

"You have no idea." The waiter said. Chloe looked over at his name tag and smiled, Brian, all those days and she never bothered to learn his name.

She passed him the scotch and the other drinks and watched as Brian's hand slipped in his apron pocket and pulled out a small bottle. He brought it over to the scotch and undid the top. Chloe reached out quickly and put her hand over his. Brian turned to her surprised and guilty, an excuse ready on his lips. "Not in his drink." She shook her head slightly. "Most things are better not mixed with alcohol." He looked stricken suddenly; like that thought never crossed his mind.

"Oh God." He hurriedly slipped the bottle back into his apron.

"Does his entrée have a sauce on it?" Chloe asked smiling to calm Brain down. He nodded. "It would probably be better in there."

"Really?" Brian slumped in relief when he realized that Chloe wasn't going to turn him in or anything. "I don't normally do stuff like this, you know. I just really hate that guy."

"I don't know anything about anything." Chloe assured him. "I'm just filling in for the day." She winked at him and he walked to the table with the drinks. Forty minutes later Lex was being taken out in an ambulance and Brian, in a fit of guilt, confessed to everything.

"I feel kind of bad for him." Chloe said. "He seemed like a nice guy who'd just been pushed too far." Chloe turned to Oliver and frowned. "You know, I have absolutely no idea what to do now."

"I say, we party." Oliver smiled tossing his arm over Chloe's shoulder and leading her down the street.

Five hours later the music was pounding from Chloe's speaker system, her friends and family were all alive, so was Lex Luther, her toilet flushed without flooding the apartment, she could make coffee and run her computer at the same time and in one hour it was going to be Friday. "Thanks for inviting us." Julia walked over with her boyfriend Jeremy.

"Well the walls are kind of thin and I figured it would be better to get to know the neighbors by inviting them to the party instead of having them call the cops on the party." Chloe smiled.

"We really appreciate it. It's been a hard couple of months, we needed this." Julia smiled.

"We should go get some coffee sometime." Chloe said. "I'm leaving for Scotland tomorrow but after that, we should get together."

"Definitely." Julia nodded and Chloe excused herself as Lois walked in the apartment confused and it seemed annoyed, with Clark trailing behind her.

"I'm so glad you could make it to my housewarming slash "I'm so glad tomorrow's Friday" party." She hugged each of them in turn. "Can I get you a drink?"

"You can tell me why you told Clark about my plans to break into LuthorCorp. Didn't let me out of his site all day and I couldn't get anything done." Lois glared. "For that matter you can tell me how you knew I was going to break into LuthorCorp."

"Jesus Clark, what part of "Don't tell her I told you" did you not understand?" Chloe gasped at him.

"You can't keep things from Lois, you know that." Clark defended himself.

"Chloe come explain to Bart that…" Oliver stopped when he saw Lois and Clark standing there. Lois."

"Oliver?" Lois asked then turned to Chloe.

"I promise that I'll explain everything when it's Friday." Chloe smiled at her.

Lois looked at her watch then at Chloe and Oliver. "Friday is in two hours. What's the difference between then and now?" She crossed her arms over her chest and Chloe sighed.

"Ok fine. I knew what you were planning on doing because you've done it for the past 158 days. I told Clark what you were planning specifically so he would stop you because for the past 158 days you've been arrested for breaking into LuthorCorp. Oliver is here because he's my new mystery boss. He's the one who saved the Isis Foundation and fixed up the apartment for me. And it's not because he just wanted to invest in some sort of charity organization, it was so I could help him, with his other job." When Lois looked over Oliver shocked Chloe went on. "Yes I know he's the Green Arrow, I knew he was the Green Arrow long before you did and I've been helping him unofficially for the past few years on and off, now I do it full time." Chloe let out a breath as Lois just stared at her astonished. "Oh, and we're dating. Me and Oliver. We're dating." Lois still didn't say anything. "Each other."

"Ok." Lois held up a hand. "First things first. I need a drink, a big one, with like fruit in it, and one of those little umbrellas, and lots and lots of rum."

"I can do that." Oliver smiled at her. He motioned Bart over and whispered something in his ear. Bart smiled and ran out of the room.

"What is…" Before Lois could even finish her sentence Bart was standing at her side with a very large pink colored drink with fruit floating in the top and a little blue umbrella. "Thank you." She took a sip and smiled. "Did you just make this?"

"No." Bart laughed. "Got it at a little resort on Ohau. Almost spilled it in New Mexico, that Armadillo came out of nowhere." He winked at Lois then walked away as she stared after him then took an even larger gulp of her drink.

"Better." Lois said when half of the cup was empty. "Start at the beginning and don't skimp on the details."

Chloe looked over at Oliver and took a deep breath. She told Lois her story, Oliver filling in parts here and there. When they were done, Lois' cup was empty and her face was surprisingly impassive. "You ok?" Chloe asked her.

"What?" Lois shook her head. "Yeah, I'm fine, I'm great." She smiled. "Hey, short stuff." She screamed at Bart across the room and he ran over. "Refill please." She shoved the glass into his stomach. Bart looked over at Oliver questioningly and he nodded. "And keep them coming yeah?" Bart disappeared and returned a minute later with another drink. Lois took another long sip and smiled. "Where can I get one of him?" Lois smiled at Bart who beamed.

"Darling you can have this one." Bart said to her. "Just say the word."

"Bart!" Chloe and Oliver both snapped at him at the same time. Bart frowned and walked away. "Seriously Lois, are you ok with this?"

"I'm fine with this." Lois assured her sincerely. "All of this…" She motioned to Chloe and Oliver's intertwined hands and they both looked down as if they hadn't even realized they'd one it. "It'll take some time to get used to it, I haven't lived the past 158 days over but I'm good." Lois said. "And now I'm going to dance." She set her drink on a side table and walked away, grabbing Clark's arm as she did. "Come on Smallville."

"Is she ok?" Oliver asked worried.

They watched as Lois made her way onto the makeshift dance floor and tried to get Clark to dance with little success. "She's fine." Chloe smiled. "So I'm all packed."

"Packed?" Oliver asked her confused.

"Scotland." Chloe reminded him. "Castle."

"Yeah." Oliver frowned. "About that…."

"Chloe! Ollie!" AC pushed his way over to her, holding two glasses of champagne. "One minute until Midnight."

Chloe and Oliver took the glasses and then walked over to where the others were standing. "You're sure?" Oliver asked Sam for the hundredth time.

"I'm sure." Sam said. "The clock will strike midnight and then it will strike 12:01. I swear."

"Well here goes nothing." AC nodded at the clock on the wall. "Ten, nine, eight, seven…"

The others picked up the chant and when they got to one they all froze and looked around the room. None of the party goers disappeared, the music kept playing and the second hand moved forward on the clock. A round of cheers and laughter erupted and champagne was toasted, Oliver picked up Chloe and spun her around as they celebrated the world turning Friday.

**October 17, 2008**

Around three a.m. Chloe's eyes were dropping but she refused to give in. It was finally Friday and there was no way she was going to sleep through one minute of it. Everyone else seemed to have the same idea. The party goers had all gone a little after midnight. Lois stayed until one thirty when Clark dragged her away. But Chloe, Oliver, Bart, AC, Victor, Sam, and Claire were still awake, afraid if they closed their eyes they'd find it had all been a dream.

Oliver handed Chloe another cup of coffee and she sipped it slowly. "What I don't understand." Chloe said. "Are the clues. Those were ridiculous."

"What clues?" Sam looked over at Chloe confused.

"The clues, the ones that led us to you at the lab." Chloe explained. "The list that Lois stole from Lex's office, the boxes that got wet when the bathroom flooded, the stupid Haiku on the fridge."

Sam looked over at Claire who shrugged. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Honestly."

Oliver looked at Chloe. "So where did they…there were clues, we wouldn't have gotten to you without them, they were there." Chloe said. "The freaking Haiku, the stupid boxes…I don't understand."

"Maybe there were clues." Claire said. "But we didn't put them there. Maybe they were just random things and you read into them what you wanted to and that led you there. If there's anything I've learned these past five years it's that sometimes things aren't connected, sometimes the world is random, and sometimes things are just destined. I don't know what to tell you."

"You have to know. They led us to you." Chloe said. "Didn't you see that? Isn't that how you saw us finding you."

"I didn't actually." Claire told her. "I didn't ever see that." Sam turned to Claire surprised.

"What do you mean you didn't see it?" Sam asked.

"They were never supposed to find us." Claire admitted to him finally. It felt good after 158 days of lying to come clean. "I'm sorry. When Lex died and we had to start the rewind early, you were so afraid, afraid that we were going to die, so I told you that Chloe would find us. I made up a story and told you she'd save us. I lied to make you feel better. I guess to make myself feel better too. I wanted to believe it. I wanted to live longer, even if it was just the exact same day over and over again."

"So we were never supposed to find that place?" Oliver asked.

"The clues were just…." Chloe turned to Oliver laughing. "The clues were nothing. The list, the boxes, the haiku, they really were just a list, a box, and a really bad poem."

"Sometimes fate throws you a curve ball, and you just have to go with it." Claire smiled.

"So you essentially put me through all that, just so that you could make Sam feel better?" Chloe laughed harder and Oliver joined her, seeing the humor in the situation.

"Sorry." Claire shrugged. "That's why I told him to pull Oliver though with you. So you wouldn't be alone." Chloe just laughed harder, Oliver right along with her. A few seconds later, Claire joined in and then Sam.

After a few minutes they all managed to calm down and stop laughing. "You know, Aristotle himself would tell you that it shouldn't have worked." Chloe pointed out.

"Aristotle?" Oliver looked over at her smiling. "It's three in the morning. You've just re-lived the past 158 days, you were dead a little over twenty four hours ago and yet you're still aware enough to bring Aristotle into this?" He raised his eyes as if daring her to go on.

Chloe glared at him and sat up straighter. "Aristotle said that probable impossibilities are preferable to improbable possibilities." Everyone looked at her confused. "He was talking about Poetry. He was saying that it was better to write a scenario that was impossible but probable to a scenario that was possible but improbable."

"Is she still speaking English?" Bart asked.

"It's simple really." Chloe said. "What we did today was a possible outcome to the situation. We would possibly stop the loop, find Sam and Claire, and save Lex." They nodded following her. "But while it was possible, it was also improbable. Logos on boxes that got wet when the toilet overflowed leading us to an address for a company on a list that Lois just happens to steal from LuthorCorp. And a Haiku found in a recycle bin in another random LuthorCorp lab, leading us through the building like a map, with the lock combination in it. Improbable. An improbable possibility." Chloe smiled. "Aristotle would say it was crazy. He would say that a probable impossibility would have been more believable."

"You know what I think Aristotle would say?" Victor asked standing up. "You need to go to bed." He leaned over and kissed her cheek. "Goodnight."

"Night." Chloe smiled.

"Come on, I've got a spare room and a pull out couch." Victor offered to Sam and Claire who nodded and followed him out. Bart and AC went next and Oliver stood up holding his hand out to Chloe.

"Bed time." Oliver told her.

"Do we have to?" Chloe groaned while Oliver pulled her up.

"Think of it this way. You'll get a full night's sleep for once." Oliver offered.

Chloe paused. "You mean I'll finally get to wake up in the same bed with you?"

"On the most amazing mattress in the world." Oliver added.

"Ok, I get it. You picked out the mattress." Chloe joked with him. "Why don't you find something new to brag about?"

"Is that a subtle hint that you want me to buy you another present?" Oliver asked as they stripped down.

"One, I'm not that girl." Chloe told him. "That girl that needs presents and expensive things ok." Oliver nodded. "And two, if you think a mattress is in anyway a present…how did you ever manage to keep a girlfriend?"

"It's an amazing mattress." Oliver smiled sliding into the bed. "And I've been told that I'm pretty hot, that usually counts for quite a bit."

Chloe smiled at him and kissed him softly. "Goodnight Oliver."

**October 20, 2008**

Chloe stood on the steps of the Isis Foundation sipping coffee made with her brand new coffee pot, watching unfamiliar traffic drive by and unfamiliar people walk down the street. "This is by far the most beautiful day I've ever seen." Chloe took a deep breath and then ducked further under the door frame.

"It's pouring down rain." Bart looked at her confused.

"Yeah but its Monday." Lighting lit up the sky and thunder rumbled all the way down to Chloe's bones.

"I'm going inside." Bart glared at the rain. "You are crazy."

"I've heard that before." Chloe shrugged. "So you got your plane ticket?" Chloe asked Sam. He nodded. "Your mom should be waiting for you when you get off the plane with about three years worth of mom kisses to make up for. I talked to the admissions guys at UCLA this morning; you're all set to pick up where you left off."

"You guys didn't have to do that." Sam said. "The plane ticket was more than enough but paying for college."

"We can cover it." Oliver assured him.

"But after what I did…" Sam looked over at Chloe sheepishly.

"There were so many things I did on the rewind days that I'd rather forget, no damage was done, and you came through in the end, that's what matters." Chloe smiled at him. "Just make sure you finish, get a good job, have a good life."

"What about Lex?" Sam asked worried. "He'll know where I am, he'll just…"

"Let us worry about Lex ok?" Chloe smiled.

"And no more Rewinds?" Oliver asked him.

"Not sure I can promise that." Sam smiled sheepishly. "But I can promise to give you guys a heads up next time."

"I can live with that." Chloe said. Then she surprised everyone by reaching forward and hugging him. Slowly he wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged back.

"Thank you." He whispered in her ear, tears stinging the edges of his eyes.

"Just doing my job." Chloe shrugged.

"What about you guys?" Sam asked. "What are you going to do?"

"What we always do." Oliver told him. "Try and find some way to stop Lex and take all his 33.1 labs with him."

"You ever need a do over just give me a call." He pulled the bag that Oliver bought him the day before full of new clothes and toiletries higher up on his shoulder. A cab pulled up in front of them and Sam sighed. "That's me." He looked over at Claire and Chloe and Oliver stepped back a little to give them some time. They'd basically been the only person in the world the other could count on for three years. "You're gonna be ok without me?"

"Are you going to be ok without me?" Claire nudged his shoulder.

"Probably not." Sam admitted and then hugged her tight. He turned to Chloe. "You sure you want to stay with these guys?"

"Yeah, I didn't have any family in Chicago, after five years, my job, my apartment all of its gone now. Plus it was really cold there." Claire smiled.

"You guys are gonna take care of her, right?" Sam asked hesitantly.

"I'm almost twice your age you know." Claire reminded him and he just looked over at Chloe.

"We'll help her figure out the job and the apartment and all that stuff ok? We're a full service rescue operation." Chloe said. "Until then she can stay here. We've got the room."

"I really appreciate that." Sam told her.

The cab honked and Claire smacked him in the head. "Go." She shoved him out into the rain and he climbed into the cab and drove away.

**Two months later**

Special Agent John Powell pushed his way through the throng of people backstage after the play smiling brightly when he caught sight of Eva talking to someone. "Daddy!" She excused herself and ran toward him, throwing her arms around his neck in a tight hug.

"You were great. Fantastic." He handed her the dozen roses he'd been holding since the curtain went up. "Amazing." Eva blushed as Special Agent McClane walked up beside him.

"Really great." She added handing over a bouquet of flowers. "I felt like I was watching a Broadway show."

Eva blushed again and turned around. "Dad, I'd like you to meet someone, this is Oliver Queen and Chloe Sullivan."

Powell and McClane exchanged a confused look and turned to the couple in front of them. "Did you say Chloe Sullivan?" McClane asked, holding her hand out to shake the woman's.

"Yes." She smiled. "And Oliver Queen."

"As in head of Queen Industries?" Powell asked.

"Guilty as charged." He shook their hands and smiled.

"I'm sorry what are you doing here?" McClane asked confused.

"He's the one who donated the money to keep the theater open." Eva smiled.

"I'm a big supporter of the arts, especially community projects, I was just checking in on my investment." He shrugged.

"Well that's great, we really appreciate it." Powell said a little cautiously.

"I was just telling Eva that I've got some connections at Julliard and that she should give me a call when she applies." Oliver smiled.

"Isn't that amazing?" Eva was practically jumping up and down in excitement.

"We really should go." Chloe said to Oliver.

"It was nice to see you again." Powell shook their hands again.

Chloe smiled at the two Special Agents. "Congratulations on the baby." Chloe nodded at McClane who looked down at her barely showing baby bump and frowned. "We're gonna be late." She said. "You were really great Eva, he meant what he said about Julliard."

"I did." Oliver smiled as they walked away.

"This is so amazing, I have to go tell Sarah Beth and Marcie." Eva smiled.

"I couldn't help but notice the absence of your boyfriend." Powell said the word boyfriend as one might say arsenic.

"Marcus?" Eva rolled her eyes. "Please, I broke up with him weeks ago, you were right dad, the guy was a player. You know he had three other girls on the line?"

"Is that so?" Powell smiled. "Well, we're gonna head home, don't stay out too late."

"Thank you so much for coming." Eva hugged each of them again. "I'm sorry Andrew couldn't make it."

"He really wanted to, but he's still trying to get all the renovations done before the baby gets here." McClane said. "I can't believe you talked me out of the other house in Antioch, it was perfect."

"I just had a bad feeling about it." Powell said shrugging. "And I was right wasn't I?"

"I still would like to know how you figured out there were termites." McClane looked at her partner critically. "Without ever having seen the property."

"Lucky guess." He grabbed McClane' arm and led her to the parking lot.

"Why does that name sound familiar?" McClane asked.

"Oliver Queen? He's only like the third richest man in the world." Powell answered.

"Not him, Chloe Sullivan. I swear I've heard that name before." McClane said getting in the car.

"It's obvious the two of them were dating, she's probably been in the papers with him." Powell said.

"I guess." McClane shrugged. "And how did she know I was pregnant, you said it wasn't obvious." She looked down at her stomach again.

"It's not." He assured her. "You've just got that pregnant glow." McClane glared at him and Powell shut up.

"Can you swing by that little Italian place before you bring me home, I've got a sudden craving for tiramisu."

"Sure thing." Powell smiled at her.

Powell locked his car and grabbed the bag of tiramisu before heading up the walk to his door. He heard a noise and paused, turning around slowly. "Hello!" He called out. A cat ran from behind the garage and he let out a sigh of relief. He turned around and stopped dead in his tracks, the Green Arrow was standing in front of his door. "Holy crap. You scared me."

"Special Agent Powell." Oliver said smiling.

"Is that tiramisu?" Another voice said coming up behind him and he relaxed when he saw Chloe. "Wow I haven't had that in forever. Hey Powell."

"Miss Sullivan." He nodded at her. "I got extra, I remembered you liked it."

"I told you he remembered." Chloe turned to the Green Arrow who pushed his hood back and took off the glasses.

"How could you be sure?" Oliver asked.

"He said nice to see you again." Chloe pointed out. "Not nice to meet you." Powell paused, he didn't realize that.

He'd gone home that night after talking to Chloe and thinking that it would make a great story but she was probably a little bit crazy. Then he woke up the next morning and it was Thursday again and later that day Lex Luther died. He was tempted to contact her but he figured she had enough on her plate and if anyone could handle the situation it was her. Sure enough after 16 Thursdays he woke up and it was Friday. He decided to keep the whole thing to himself and wait and see if she contacted him.

"How exactly did you remember?" Oliver asked as Powell opened the door and motioned them inside.

"I'm not sure." He shrugged passing Chloe the bag of take away. "I just woke up the next day, only it was still Thursday and things were happening exactly the same as they did before."

"But McClane doesn't remember?" Chloe asked.

"Nothing." He shook his head. "This came through too." He said opening a drawer on his desk and pulled out a piece of paper. Oliver took it and read it over chuckling to himself before passing it to Chloe, it was the first page of a transcript of her interview with McClane and Powell, just the first page.

"Did Sam say anything about bringing him through?" Oliver asked.

"No and I talked to him yesterday." She shook her head. "He's got a full course load and he met a girl."

"Who is Sam?" Powell asked. "And what happened? How did you stop it?"

"Make some coffee and grab some spoons." She nodded to the tiramisu. "It's a long story."

Chloe told him about everything, how he was right about the clues, and wrong since technically there were no clues. She told him about Oliver dying, about her dying, about finally getting it right, and about how she saved Lex. "I read about Brian in the papers, but Lex dropped the charges a few days later."

"Yeah that was her." Oliver grabbed the tiramisu from Chloe and took a bite. "Although she won't tell me how exactly."

"I told you, I committed at least one felony, I wanted you to have plausible deniability." Chloe reached for the tiramisu and Oliver pulled it away and glared at her. "Fine." She turned to Powell. "But I'm telling him the story, not you."

"I don't care, I can still hear it." Oliver gloated with his tiramisu.

**October 20, 2008**

Chloe pulled her rain coat tighter and slipped out of the door to Isis Foundation. Oliver should stay asleep until she got back and if she woke him when she got in she was confident in her ability to persuade him to go back to bed. She made her way down the street in the rain and smiled. Something occurred to her earlier when she was telling Sam goodbye. She was full of bravado and confidence when she told Sam she would take care of Lex with no idea how she was going to do it, then it hit her. She realized she had to do this one on her own because chances were Oliver wouldn't approve and she couldn't send the other guys in, it had to be her. So here she was quietly making her way through the sleeping city at three in the morning, splashing in puddles just for the fun of it, a smile on her face.

She slipped in the back of Metropolis Towers liked she done so many times before on her repeat days and up the back stairwell to the penthouse. She hacked the lock using a borrowed piece of Victor's tech and waited. Forty minutes later Lex walked in and paused at the door. "You smell like wet dog."

"Yeah I think one of the puddles I stepped in wasn't just rain water." Chloe wrinkled her nose.

Lex finished hanging up his jacket and poured himself a drink. He held the bottle of scotch up and Chloe nodded. He poured her a drink and handed it over. "So, what can I do for you today Miss Sullivan?"

"A couple things actually, you might want to write them down." Chloe offered and Lex just stared at her. "First things first, you're going to drop the charges on Brian Martin tomorrow."

"Who is Brian Martin?" Lex sat down and pushed a button. A fire roared in the fireplace and Chloe stepped closer to it to warm her up.

"The waiter from Pino's that poisoned you." Chloe reminded him.

"Why exactly would I drop the charges?" Lex chuckled.

"It sounds crazy but Brian poisoning you actually saved your life in ways that you can't even begin to imagine." Chloe smiled. "You're going to want to repay the favor."

"You're right, that sounds crazy." Lex smiled up at her. "Try again."

"Ok, how about this." Chloe sat on the chair next to him. "I didn't realize it until this afternoon but recently I've spent quite a bit of time dealing with you and I've found out some things."

"Things?" Lex looked at her confused.

"Illegal things." Chloe said. "A lot of illegal things. Some of them would probably be illegal even in Amsterdam so that makes them like double illegal here."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Lex laughed imagining the whole thing to be some joke or a bluff.

Chloe paused for a second, she wasn't sure where to start. She had intimate knowledge of multiple briberies, illegal international deals, frauds, and many more schemes of Lex's from spending 158 days trying to keep him alive. "Well, if we started off small I would say the property tax fraud scheme that you've been running for going on five years now, which leads into the bribing of a local government official, well not just the one but I can't play all my cards up front can I?"

"Do you have any proof of these allegations?" Lex set his glass down.

"Oh you're a master at leaving paper trails." Chloe smiled at him. "That's what I love about you." She pulled an envelope out of her bag and tossed it to him. "That's just a preview of what I've got. Only took me a few hours to put together too." That was actually the easy part. Knowing about all of Lex's misdeeds made it very easy to find the solid proof, with a little help from all the CCTV cameras around the city she even had some good pictorial evidence. Lex's face got angrier and angrier as flipped through the papers.

"Fine." He tossed her the envelope again. "I'll drop the charges first thing in the morning."

"Good." Chloe sat back down. "Next…"

"Really?" Lex asked her. "Next?"

"I asked you earlier if you wanted to write this stuff down." Chloe smiled at him and he growled, actually growled before sitting across from her. "Next, I hear you had an unfortunate incident a few days ago involving one of your 'warehouses'. A mysterious gas explosion if I'm not mistaken."

Lex scoffed. "It was that Green Arrow bandit."

"Yeah, so from what I understand your 'warehouse' had quite a few people in it, thank God they all got out. And they're all going to stay out." Chloe smiled at him. "Do you understand what I'm saying here?"

"I'm not sure I do." Lex challenged her.

"Sam Walter and Claire Peterson." Chloe made herself perfectly clear. "I'll be keeping a very close eye on those two, I've sort of got a vested interest in their continued freedom. You don't come near them, you don't look at them, you don't contact them in anyway and you definitely don't kidnap them and bring them to your secret labs where you run experiments on them. Any of these things happen and I'll have to pull out the folder that probably wouldn't interest the police nearly as much as it would a certain head of the Russian Mafia located right here in Metropolis. Understand now?"

"Perfectly." Lex said.

"Great." Chloe smiled and finished her scotch. "Good stuff." She pulled her still damp jacket on and walked to the door.

"That's it?" Lex asked her. "That's all you want?"

"Oh that's probably not it, it's all I want from you now." Chloe smiled at him. "I hate to break it to you but you're probably going to be my bitch for a while, and you know I'm ok with that, so you should start to get used to it." She opened the door and moved to into the hallway.

"How did you know?" Lex asked her and Chloe turned to him, holding the door open. "About Sam and Claire?"

"Isis Foundation." Chloe smiled. "Your wife, sorry, ex-wife did a good job of advertising. If they need to, they'll find me. And with all the technology at my disposal if I want to, I can find them."

"I knew I should never have let her have a hobby." Lex joked as Chloe closed the door.

**Present**

"Hold on, just one second." Oliver smiled. "You really told Lex he was gonna be your bitch?"

"Yeah." Chloe nodded. Oliver handed over his tiramisu bowing.

"You are so awesome. Sometimes I forget how awesome you are then you do stuff like that." Oliver leaned over and kissed her.

"I thought your first story was crazy." Powell shook his head.

"That's how we live." Chloe smiled at him.

"Better you than me." Powell smiled at her. "So did you just come here to tell me how it all turned out?"

"Actually, we were hoping you'd do us a favor." Chloe asked him.

"This can't be good." Powell shook his head and laughed. "Lay it on me."

"Claire, the girl from the facility, We've been thinking about it and we think, with her special talent of seeing connections, that she'd make a good cop." Chloe explained.

"She probably would." Powell thought for a minute and noticed Chloe and Oliver looking at him expectantly. "What?"

"Well she took the test and she scored off the charts, she's almost done with her training at the academy. But I think her talents are wasted as a beat cop. So I talked to a few friends in the department and they said that with her test scores, she could fast track up the department if she had a sponsor. Someone who would vouch for her, show her the ropes, partner with her."

Powell finally understood what they were talking about. "I already have a partner." He said.

"Who's pregnant and probably going to go on Maternity leave in a few months, which is just how long Claire needs to work the beat before she comes up for promotional consideration." Oliver pointed out.

"That is true but even so." Powell stood up. "There is a difference between getting bumped from beat cop to homicide in local precinct. But we're talking Metropolis PD to FBI in two months, it just doesn't happen."

"We thought of that too." Oliver said. "It may surprise you to know that there are quite a few people in positions of authority who are aware of people like Claire and what they can do. I know a few who would be able to get her application pulled through."

"People in positions of authority?" Powell asked.

"I can't really reveal any names." Oliver smiled.

"Of course not." Powell took a deep breath. "She's really that good? I mean this isn't just using your position to get a friend a better job."

"She's really that good." Chloe said pulling out a piece of paper. "These are her scores from the crime scene simulation tests."

Powell studied the sheet. "That can't be right." He looked over the numbers again. "She solved the cases in two minutes? All eight mock crime scenes."

"She can walk into any room and tell you what's missing, what's out of place, how many people have been through it in the past three days, who they are and where they are now." Chloe explained to him. "Given enough time she could pick up this fork and tell you the name of every person who ever touched it."

"She is that good." Powell put the paper down. "I want to meet with her first. I'm not going to sponsor someone, partner with them if I've never met them."

"How's coffee? Tomorrow?" Chloe smiled.

"I'll check my schedule." Powell smiled at her.

"Her numbers on the paper." Chloe told him.

"We gotta go." Oliver said to Chloe. "The plane leaves in two hours and you aren't packed yet."

"Going on a trip?" Powell walked them to the door.

"Finally he's living up to his promise." Chloe smiled. "He promises me a vacation and fails to mention the fact that his castle is under construction and completely unlivable at the moment. Three months later, I'm finally getting on a plane."

"Scotland." Powell remembered. "His own private island."

"You told him about that?" Oliver groaned in frustration.

"You honestly don't get what's so amazing about it? The fact that you own your own island."

"It's land, lots of people own land." Oliver argued and Chloe threw her hands up in exasperation. "It was really nice to meet you." Oliver ignored Chloe and held out his hand to Powell. "I'm sure we'll see more of each other in the future. It's always useful to have friends in law enforcement in our line of work."

"I'm sure it is." Powell laughed.

"I wasn't kidding about that Julliard thing either. Tell Eva to call me."

"I will." Powell nodded at him and walked the to the door.

"Ok." Chloe turned to Oliver as they walked down the driveway. "What would you say if I told you I wanted to buy my own private space shuttle?"

"What would you need a private space shuttle for? What does anyone need a private space shuttle for? That's ridiculous." Oliver scoffed at her.

"Exactly." Chloe nodded at him encouragingly.

"It's not the same thing." Oliver argued.

"It's exactly the same thing." Chloe groaned. "How do you not understand this?"

"Would you just let it go?" Oliver pleaded with her. "If it's such a big deal, how about this, we don't go to the island. We don't go to the castle, we'll buy a commercial plane ticket, get a room in a hotel at some resort."

"Hold on, don't be hasty, just back up there cowboy." Chloe smiled at him. "I'm not saying I don't want to go. I definitely want to go. It's a private island for god's sake. We're going. I just want you to admit that the whole idea of one person owning an island is a little superfluous."

"If I admit that, will you shut up about it?" Oliver asked her hopefully.

"Yes." Chloe nodded and waited for him to go on.

Oliver opened his mouth. "No, sorry, I can't do it, I just can't. Chloe there are some things that you're going to have to learn to live with. I'm that guy. The one who owns and island and doesn't think it's a big deal. The one who will drop everything and spend a month in Monte Carlo because I feel like it. If you think about it, that's a good thing for you. Because that guy is more likely to buy you extravagant presents for no reason, and take you on ridiculous spur of the moment adventures and keep you on your toes."

"You just like arguing with me." Chloe slid her arm through his.

"There is that." He nodded.

"I like arguing with you too." Chloe leaned her head on his shoulder as they walked down the street to the car. "As long as you admit that right or wrong, I'm always going to win."

"Of that there is no doubt." Oliver assured her.


End file.
